


A Prologue of Loneliness

by Shinashi



Category: Ai no Kusabi
Genre: Blood and Violence, Forced Drug Use, Gun Violence, Horror, Kidnapping, M/M, Other, Psychological Horror, Strangling, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:49:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 49,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24829378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinashi/pseuds/Shinashi
Summary: Valentine's long past, one would expect a fairytale ending for Iason and Riki, but there are people in both their lives who cannot accept such happiness. A horrible mistake leads to the most horrific of consequences of which no one would have expected in a thousand years- and it has less to do with Iason's past than it does with Riki's. Even if he is an orphan, he still has a past that can haunt him... Right now though, they all have to survive these few months of terror.(Half-sequel to Savor - A Valentine's Tribute)
Relationships: Iason Mink/Riki, Raoul Am/Katze
Kudos: 5





	1. December

**Author's Note:**

> What's uuuuuuup! I've been working on the sequel and betweens to Savor since I finished Savor, and even a little bit before then. This whole piece was supposed to be one prologue chapter but then I realized it just wouldn't do... So I have it like this. There is no sex or hot scenes or anything like that. This is all to lead up to the sex and hot scenes of Melt - A Summer's Tribute! 
> 
> Please be careful. This is intense in a violent way rather than nice sexy ones.

December

The jail cell was always ten times smaller when night came. It was already smaller than a walk-in closet. Seriously, a walk-in closet at Iason’s house could easily fit two of the cells.

Iason.

Riki shook his head, trying to focus. Thinking about Iason only depressed him, distracted him, made him cry his eyes out later. Nine months into this and he had a method: Wake up and do push-ups and a bit of yoga, to loosen up. After breakfast was for the real exercise, outside, soaking up as much sun as he could because the skylights inside did shit, even during the day. Then it was the library, studying where he left off from some textbook, finding out that if he actually studied every day, math wasn’t hard at all! Then it was lunch, then an after-lunch workout, then the library if he was particularly tired, and if he wasn’t, he slid into the back of the movie room, hoping no one would try to talk to him.

He didn’t know when the guy of the night was picked out, but he knew that everyone already knew that they might get a chance. A man or five would be coming forward and sizing him up and down to see what all the hubbub was about.

“You don’t look that strong.”

He hasn’t heard that in so long, before being arrested, and now he heard it nearly every single goddamn night, and almost every time he went to the movie room, or the cafeteria, and sometimes in the library. Usually, though, whoever was in the library actually wanted to read and be alone, which suited him perfectly.

Then it was dinner.

Then.

Shower, always alone, and, he was no believer, but he thanked whoever might be in charge for that saving grace.

Then his cell, alone for just an hour, no more, and then the man of the night would come and try to rape him.

It was that simple. A simple horrifying fact.

He knew that if they were trying to kill him, a good number of them would have won. It also helped that if they got him down on the bed, or his shirt ripped off, or shoved up against the wall behind him they would make a grunt of their progress: “Almost there!”, “Halfway there baby!”, “Now the pants!”

He always used that opportunity to kick everything up a notch, gain that second wind, and beat the shit out of whoever it was.

He’s never lost a fight.

As always.

He’s never killed any of them either, although he was _so_ angry, but he was angry all the time. He hasn’t had his medicine since it all started. He was back to the angry little boy he used to be, always ready for a fight, never wanting to talk. He’s gone weeks without saying anything to anyone.

Just fighting.

Living.

Iason.

He imagined Iason looking for him, finally finding him, gone from the world because Riki decided to leave it when he was good and ready. Which would have been long ago, if just that image of Iason didn’t plague him as easily as his fond memories of him.

Fond memories that even included when he actually last saw Iason, which was possibly the angriest anyone has ever, ever been with him. The only time that even come a quarter of the way close was when he and the rest of the gang found a sword- a relatively fake one, but sharp enough that playing with it cut deeply into Sid’s shoulder, a wound that eventually needed twelve industrial-like stitches. Having never hit them in her life, Grandma smacked them upside their heads with her church heels, yelling at them: “What if you had chopped off his gosh-dang head, you dummies! You idiots! Hoolingans! Hooli!” SMACK! “Gans!”

Even Sid wasn’t spared: “You better remember this here!” An admittedly gentle tap on Sid’s hurt shoulder. “’Cause next time you won’! It just gon take your head plumb off your shoulders!” Tap, tap!

Riki allowed himself to smile in the dark quiet, breathing in and out. He was doing better, mentally, today, as a calm washed over him as he let himself fall into a fluffy past.

Mainly, what started all of this.

He had grabbed Iason’s keys to his car.

“Where?!” Iason demanded from his desk. He was working on some essay. It was due in a week, after Spring Break, but he didn’t want anything to hinder what should be a spectacular week, because, apparently, the wonders that be didn’t want him and Riki to do anything more than jack each other off since Valentine’s. They hadn’t had any time together for some time as Riki first got sick with a cold. When it lasted way too damn long, a hospital visit proved that it was actually the flu.

Riki’s never had the flu.

And neither had Iason.

Until Riki recovered, that is.

Now they were both behind on work and looking forward to a break, and Riki was so very bored of the math packet and so he decided for just a little drive.

“Just up and down 100.”

“Okay, up and down wherever that is, and I swear if you get so much as a deflated tire-”

“Yea, yea, yea,” Riki said dismissively.

Into the dark air, Riki said, “Yea, yea, yea.”

He went up and down 100, sure enough, and then, in a literal turn of events, he took Exit 69 (ha), to go around the bends that cuddled a river. It had a name, and it was actually pretty big, and deceptively deep, but Riki could never remember because it had some sweet turns. Turns were to him like big waves were to a pro surfer, just waiting to be conquered in a really sweet ride. That last part didn’t quite fit the analogy, but, yea, just like that.

It was a beautiful day despite the incredibly late winter. So the windows were up, the music loud as balls, wheels fast as halibut! They squealed, and screeched, and pretty much screamed in protest. He did that on purpose, drifting. One time the car kind of teetered dangerously to the side- that really should have been a clue- and he decided to finally put on his seatbelt. That might have saved his life (that most certainly saved his life).

The Death Turn. Reeeeeeeeally should have been a clue.

Well, he took that turn that about fifteen people died on. In the last year.

Fast, drifting, bass!

Ice patch.

Flip. Bang. Flip. SKID!

There went the roof, and he was lucky it didn’t take off his damn head. (Seriously. The seatbelt kept him just far up enough, and he was leaning forward into the wheel). Then, with gusto, the car banged into the river. He’s always heard that water wasn’t all that soft, and now he had the absolute proof. The car landed passenger side first, the air bags finally fucking bursting up to life- what the hell, that slow sinking stuff was not true either! The water bit into his flushed with hot adrenaline skin so fast he very nearly passed out in shock. Luckily, he didn’t, and he got out from his seatbelt and swam to the bank.

“Fuck, it’s cold, fuck, it’s cold, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Yea, no shit,” the present Riki told his past self.

“Oh, shit.” Riki shivered, looking down at the car now mostly submerged. “Iason. God damn. He is going to kill me.” Shakings wracked him, and he said again, “He’s gonna kill me.”

He took the long walk back to 100, up the ramp, wanting to flag down a car to call the police and the local funeral parlor, get them ready to prepare a body, if there was anything left when Iason was done with him. And if he didn’t die of frostbite- a car! A familiar car… A REALLY familiar set of cars.

It seems that Iason’s bad luck has now fully and completely entered Riki’s karma wheel, intricately woven so that a long row of his bestest best friends and the most wonderful boyfriend in the world was coming right on down, and slowing down to a crawl. Riki wondered who would speak first, what would they say, would they notice he was damp and standing around in the freezing cold?

Iason in the passenger seat, and Raoul rolled up in his black beauty. Riki could smell the leather.

His lovely boyfriend’s lovely blue eyes roamed up and down, as others exited the cars to watch what hell was going on.

Those blue eyes were colder than the river.

“Is my car at the bottom of a river?” Iason asked lightly.

What was he supposed to say? Yes? Okay. Maybe yes. But Riki said nothing, with just a stupid look on his face.

“Did you drive down that long, winding road with enough ice patches to make a car’s tires go in two different directions?”

“Mmmm…” Not quite a yes.

Iason seemed to flow out of the car, even a slight smile on his face. He opened the back door, gentlemanly, bending over in a bow. “Get in.” His voice caressed Riki’s face as he stood over him, looking down. Riki felt pretty sure that if he wasn’t the only person in the world who knew exactly where Iason’s car was, Iason would be slowly choking the life out of him. Probably enjoying the light slowly fading from his eyes.

Still, Riki got in, next to Guy. Riki looked at his best friend, who merely shook his head.

“Riki. You fucked up.”

“Yea,” was all Riki could say. A little drive later, he told Raoul, “Right here.”

The procession stopped.

Riki hurriedly got out the car before Iason could open his door. Somehow, Iason so carefully treating him with kid gloves promised a lot more pain later to make up for it. Good thing, too, because Iason definitely stared at him with that subzero stare, which trailed along the road and to the river and to the beautiful car very much visible from the bank, that beautiful color still sparkling through the surface of the water.

No one said anything. Riki heard his own heartbeat in his ears, not at all steady but hiccupping as if thinking, what’s the point? He will be dead soon anyway.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! RIKIIIIIIIIII!”

Riki hopped away with a stifled, “Jesus Christ!”

Because it wasn’t Iason that yelled, but Gideon’s animalistic shriek.

“Riki, you really, really done it,” Zeke’s deep voice kind of purred over his shoulder (did they all do that? Be nice and calm when they were super angry?), and his hands massaged his shoulder, and kind of squeezed, and then kind of really clenched into his muscle.

“Um. That hurts… Just a bit, Zeke… Zeke! Zeke, my man, that is a very important nerve.”

PAT. PAT.

Right onto those shoulders.

“Nooooo, nooooo, noooooo! This is the fucking worst!” Gilbert kicked a very large rock into the water. It trailed harmlessly down beside the dead car.

“Man, really? Having less than fantastic cars isn’t all that-”

Aisha stopped Sid’s words at once: “The punishment for getting, like, a fucking ticket was slow cars. If any of us got into a crash or otherwise damaged the car, we would have our allowances reduced to one hundred dollars a month!”

“Well, we don’t even get allowances, so-”

“And the punishment for any of us having our car totaled is having to get jobs.”

“Oh. So-”

“So instead of us enjoying our college life with relative freedom, and waiting until graduation to join the real world, we can now all happily join it now. Isn’t that great, Riki?”

Riki slowly turned his head towards Aisha.

“I see that stupid look is just permanently stuck.”

Riki’s brain finally joined the equation: “I’m really sorry. I would say I would pay it back-” Nothing less than guffaws ensued, the fuckers. “…If I didn’t know that that car prolly got more money behind it than fifteen times everything I have ever made.”

Iason spoke slowly, “Fifteen is being quite generous.”

“Uh, yea, yea…”

No words, tension like ice.

“Iason?”

Iason whipped towards him, and Riki saw in his gait his anger boiling over, not to mention the seething hiss to his words as he told Riki, “You are going to work in whatever burger-flipping, grease trap, soul-killing monstrosity that my dad assigns me to. You’re gonna grin and fucking bear it. We’re gonna answer that damn drive-thru together. We’re gonna wipe the counters a thousand times together, oh, yes, mop the bathrooms right on up because for some reason when people go out, they don’t know how to clean up after themselves!”

“Sounds romantic?”

Guy sighed into the palm of his hand. Iason’s teeth exactly an inch away, could easy bite his face off.

“Dumbass,” Luke muttered. He turned conversationally to Gideon. “So where are we working?”

“We?” Gideon asked, already smiling. “Well, Dad always wanted me to work on a farm.”

“Oh, cool. There’s one with fucking zebras out by the lakes. Maybe your dad can hook us up there?”

_Alright, Luke_ , Riki thought to himself, _get it, one of us should, at any rate…_

Riki leaned against the cell wall, wondering if Luke did ‘get it’.

The Blondies all had jobs by the end of the day, making Riki and the others realize, holy shit, they aren’t spoiled brats and Riki really fucked up! They were working at their jobs the third day into Spring Break, which Iason was happy to remind Riki wasn’t a break anymore since HE WAS WORKING!

To make matters even better, Apollo had no intention of helping Riki get a job at said burger-flipping, grease trap, soul-killing monstrosity which he certainly did assign Iason to.

Riki called him for the fifteenth time that day. Iason had given Riki his father’s number and Riki had left dozens of messages (ninety-three) telling him how it was all his fault and Iason wasn’t to blame and a bunch of shit that Apollo definitely already knew but was what Riki just had to say, because, hey, maybe it’ll stick. It wasn’t as if he wanted them not to do the punishment that they had agreed on- back in high school! Jeezums! He just really needed for that asshole manager to hire him instead of saying he didn’t want a couple of lovebirds causing a distraction.

“Really?” Iason had yelled from across a stack of inventory- “So I am on break, but there is no actual break room?”- “Because Allen is distracted by his phone half the time, and you don’t say anything! Or does it just not matter if your SON is distracted?”

“Seems like he is distracting enough without li’l ol’ me,” Riki quipped, with a snorting laugh.

The manager gave Riki a glare, then glared at Iason, asking, “Isn’t your ten-minute break over?”

Iason flipped his wristwatch. “Actually,” he informed him in the haughtiest of tones, “I would have one minute and forty-eight seconds, if this was a ten-minute break, but since I work six hours and thirty minutes today, I get a whole fifteen-minute break.”

Riki chuckled hard into his chest, trying to stifle himself but, god, Iason was so fucking funny. They had to work together! It’ll be the best!

“Most people don’t take a break with such a short shift.”

“Most people are fucking dumb and should exercise their rights so that asshole businessmen won’t shame their smart employees.” 

Riki was laughing so hard, the rickety folding chair shook.

The manager stood up from the ‘desk’, a block of wood nailed into the wall underneath more blocks of wood that were used as ‘shelves’.

“This-” He pointed at the laughing Riki; he pointed at Iason with his raised eyebrows. “-is exactly why you are not working together. Iason wouldn’t be here if his daddy hadn’t wrangled me into hiring him until he graduates.”

Iason sniffed dismissively. “Daddy is paying you out the ass.”

“And if you didn’t have that ass and that pretty face to go along with it, I would have fired you!”

Oh.

Oh.

The manager looked ready to pass out.

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean that. It’s just that… that…”

“Let me finish that for you, sir.” Iason stepped around the shelves, punching a hanging box of plastic cups over, deeper atop too much inventory. “‘It’s just that’ you’re going to let me off early-”

“Your dad asks for the security tapes-”

“Figure something out. And also, you’re going to hire Riki to work with me. Immediately.”

“Your dad already knows my reason why I won’t hire him.”

Iason rolled his eyes. “Figure. Something. Out. Have a good afternoon! C’mon, Riki, before I get this man assassinated.”

“See you tomorrow, boss!” Riki shot at the manager, who still looked a stone’s throw away from death. Well, he will have Iason blackmailing him, probably until he graduates, or until the manager dies, both equally likely to happen in the same timeframe.

Riki practically skipped out with Iason, to the damn jalopy that was his car. It was old, rusted, the brakes worse than a thousand nails on a chalkboard, and sometimes it didn’t even turn on. The only way to get that fixed was to raise about a grand on his own- their own. Granted, Riki could get a job absolutely anywhere in Amoi, but was he going to miss Iason acting a damn fool err’day? Hell naw!

And all the at-work sex they could do.

Maybe a little buzzer inside as he talked to some asshole customer that said they asked for a large fry instead of a medium.

Riki rubbed his hands together.

“Why are you getting frisky? I’m dropping you off on the edge of campus. I work at five tomorrow. Don’t be late! I’m the only one who can be late.”

Riki still grinned at him, looking at that lovely profile of a man who definitely felt avenged, at least momentarily. He reached for a thigh, looking so nice in a pair of work slacks that were too small for him, because ones in his size ‘haven’t arrived yet’. No complaints from him!

Iason let him, with a sigh.

Riki reached a little further.

Iason smacked his hand. “Enough frisky. Here’s your stop.”

Riki did as he was told, rolling over the hood while avoiding that tiny piece of metal that jagged up from said hood, and he sidled up to the driver’s window.

“Yes?” Iason asked, fluttering his eyes.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, guy who fucked up my Spring Break and eventually my summer and then my school year?”

Riki feigned confusion. “Guy didn’t do all that.”

Iason seemed to growl in his throat: “Mggggn!”

“Just a kiss. Please? I miss your mouth on me.”

“I miss my leather seats. Anyway, you should be happy to see my face.”

“With that ass?”

“I will run you over!”

Riki hurried away before Iason made good on his threat, although Riki was sure if he ran just a quarter of a mile, Iason going full speed in his car would sputter it right out of commission.

Riki still blew him a kiss.

Which Iason caught and blew back, although he was sticking his tongue out. Welp! Progress was progress!

It was the last time he communicated with Iason.

The time after that was a blur. A nightmare. It was the next morning, or the next afternoon, he was sure it was during the day because he remembered the sun shining through their tiny, tiny dorm window, and how the police had flashlights on as if it was midnight. There was so much yelling, especially Guy: “What did he do?! What did he do?!” He felt light as air as two policemen easily pulled him from his bed. One of them told him, “I’m sorry, Riki, we found some stuff in your motorcycle- obviously it was planted. We’ll get this straightened out, ok?” Riki didn’t answer, as someone was yelling to not say shit, don’t say shit, Riki!

Suddenly, he was outside and so many people were taking pictures and recording- he saw Kirie pointing both middle fingers at him- and then instantly he was in the police car, the WEE-WOO WEE-WOO WEE-WOO alarm was accidentally set off- “Sorry, reflex.”- then there was the flash of more pictures, mugshots, and there goes his fingerprints in the system, and then flash in his cell. There was a light. The light does not go off, but the door is loud, and he could hardly hear his guard say, “You’ll be out by morning.”

At the time, Riki thought of Jupiter. With Kirie gloating, Riki knew the little fuck had something to do with everything, probably planted weed or crack into his bike. Good thing he had a good reputation, for that was not always the case, and now he just had to wait until morning to smash his head in. No amount of cajoling from Guy and Mimea will keep him away.

“Smarmy bastard.” That opinion has not changed over the past nine months.

But he knew Kirie had nothing to do with a guard telling him later that ‘a friend’ posted bail and he could leave, but instead of the guard taking him out the front office, it was through some side office, it was so _dark_ , and he was being pulled, and why did he have handcuffs again, and he couldn’t _see_ anyone’s face and there was a van and he was forced in with what looked like other prisoners.

“Damn, he is pretty!”

Not prisoners.

“You sure Jupes ain’t gone send some people after us? This would look real bad on her.”

“Shut the fuck up, you fucker. Puttin’ us on blast.”

“Oh, yea. Yea, sorry about that.”

“Put the blindfold on.”

At this, Riki finally realized this may have been outside proper procedure, and he placed a well-aimed kick to someone’s diaphragm. He heard a sputtering gasp, but recognized it only peripherally, as he swung his wrists, palms clutched together. There was a scream of pain.

“He really _does_ pack a punch.”

So, someone told them he did?

That’s something only an Amoian would know, and Jupiter wasn’t Amoian.

He fought more vigorously; he felt that if he allowed them to take him, he wasn’t ever coming back, and where he was going was somewhere he never wanted to be. His panic put more force behind a kick into someone’s shoulder, and Riki heard the small clicks of a shoulder becoming dislocated.

“’Ey, fuck this.” The familiar sound of a gun being cocked. Riki froze, snarling at the barrel. If push came to shove, he’ll fight even with a gun pointed at him, and he would go for Mr. Gunman first, or die trying. He was going to kill them.

Mr. Gunman’s acquaintance, the driver, apparently disagreed with the current direction: “We don’t get paid, at-fucking-all, if he’s hurt even a little bit!”

“Then what the fuck we do?”

“Handcuff his legs. Stuff something in his mouth before he bites one of you. Then toss ‘im to the floor. Keep ya legs right on top of ‘im.”

They attempted to do what they were told, and Riki continued to fight, knowing that he was at a far advantage.

“He’s going to knock one of us out!”

“Don’t be a goddamn baby!”

Riki managed not to knock any of them out, definitely not for lack of trying, but he was still handcuffed by the legs, and, as an afterthought, they all worked together to cuff him with his arms behind his back. A man shoved a towel into his mouth, pink, he remembered even in the darkness because he looked down at it to ascertain, of all things, how clean it was. A blindfold was placed over his eyes as he was stepped on at the bottom of the van.

How long did he they drive? He wasn’t given anything to eat or drink, even though he knew that an inordinate amount of time passed, as he took naps intermittently, before they finally arrived to where they were going. He was pulled from the floor, the van, and he remembered how quiet it was, because back at the Amoian jail it was noisy from the surrounding evidence of nightlife.

It was silent. And cold, much colder than back at the city.

“Hurry up before he gets hypothermia! It’s negative four out here!”

He was so tired, and so hungry, so cold.

And the next thing he knew, it was warm. It was so warm, he started shivering! Someone pushed him into a chair, a comfortable armchair, he could fall asleep right then and there. He leaned back, then snapped up. What was he doing getting comfortable? Where was he? Why was he there?

At that thought, someone whipped off his blindfold, let his limbs go free.

An office, a real one, bright white, with a desk of deeply dark wood, real bookshelves filled with tchotchkes, books, and rewards, and a warden jumping right from an episode of Orange is the New Black.

None of what Riki could see held any clue to where he was, other than a jail of some kind.

The warden was fine as hell. It may have been the ‘having not seen a real face in days’ working through his mind, but then, no, no, he was attractive, and not just in the traditional sense, for his eyes were almost neon green, skin caramel with freckles, and there was a natural slight overbite to his smile, and he _was_ smiling. They were staring at each other, and the warden was looking at him up and down, not sizing him up- appreciating.

Riki coughed and said through a very sore throat, “If they have sold me to you, maybe being trafficked isn’t so bad.”

The warden’s gorgeous eyes blinked in utter shock.

“I heard-” Even his voice was amazing! “-that you joked under pressure. You really are the whole package.”

“And so are you,” Riki shot back. God, he was so out of it. Did they drug him?

“You hungry?”

Right. He hadn’t eaten or anything. “Yes! I mean, yea, yea. A bit.”

The warden nodded. “Alright!” he yelled, and immediately a few prisoners walked into the office with mobile trays. The smell of food wafted through, and, it was true that he always ate well afterwards, probably to keep him healthy, for fighting.

But before all that he was fed and given tea and juice and milk, and he realized that the prisoners were all relatively young, like him, and attractive, and the warden pulled one of them forward into a kiss and fondle, and the order as he smacked the man’s ass, “Get this ready.”

“Yes, sir,” was the low answer.

“I bet you wish you had a certain man like that at your beck and call, right?” the warden asked when the door closed behind the last prisoner, and he was pouring himself some coffee, and that drink in particular was put only in his vicinity. The tea wasn’t caffeinated.

Riki whispered, “I’m working on it.”

Chuckling, the warden shook his head.

“Forget about all that.”

His voice changed. It was a voice that was meant to be obeyed. Immediately. His green eyes, too, focused into a razor-sharp stare, and he repeated, “Forget about all that. All you have now is me and this prison. This is your life now.” Tall frame shadowing over Riki, the warden had his arms behind his back, leaning further down.

Riki knew what was about to happen. He wondered if the warden knew he knew.

“What do you say to that, young man?”

Riki sipped up his lavender tea, hiding a deep breath to his lungs, then set the mug down beside him. “I say you got me fucked up.” He held his breath.

“Oh, do I?”

“Yea.”

In a millisecond, Riki saw that the man was left-handed, swinging with his right- he was holding back. He didn’t know, and that’s how Riki swerved underneath the swing, grabbing the mug again, and swung it down onto the back of taller man’s head. A kick to the side of his ribs almost followed through, but he canceled the move midway as he saw the warden straighten up a tad- he could grab his foot and this would be over in a hurry. Even with the blood running down the side of his face as it did.

Riki kept both arms down to his sides, wondering if it was over, but he _felt_ the warden backing up towards him, and so Riki shifted quickly to right, trying to see the man’s face, but it was blocked by the right arm.

With the left fist, he jabbed, and Riki simply shifted back to the left.

“Smart,” the warden praised, and that was a mistake, because just hearing his voice told Riki exactly where his mouth was. He punched a particular spot on the warden’s arm, and a hard gasp left the taller man. 

The warden finally began his offense, taking merely one step backward and turning around, throwing a feint of a fist with his left hand. Before he could put some pressure into his off hand, Riki had hit him twice in the chin with both hands. The warden reacted faster than Riki thought he would by bringing his arms up to guard his face. So fast that he made the mistake of straightening up. Riki shifted his level down, reaching his arms around to make it seem as if he was going to grab him. Hidden underneath, his right leg reached far forward. He guessed that the warden would see his left leg outstretched, looking for another change: his body curving forward, strengthening his stance against a lunge from Riki.

It came. Riki heard an intake of breath, and instead of bringing his left leg all the way forward to really propel him against the warden’s own legs, he simply snapped his feet together and popped up, his shoulder into the taller man’s ribcage to flip him over.

Riki followed the entire move, doing a very tight backflip so that he landed on the man’s chest. He wrapped his legs as best he could around the arms underneath him, locking him into holding himself, and began to pummel. Back and forth with both hands, and he would have never stopped.

If the meds in whatever- probably everything- hadn’t kicked in, he knew he would have fucked up the warden beyond repair. Alas, they hit like a ton of bricks, doubling him over, and the last thing he saw was how the warden, the motherfucker, didn’t even move. He hoped he killed him.

He learned he hadn’t killed the warden the next day, early morning, as the doctor saw to his knuckles, bruised with one having torn flesh from getting caught on teeth. She was directly in his cell, bringing with her what seemed like the sun, but was merely a light of extreme luminosity. She spoke conversationally, “You really worked him over, prisoner Z-107M! He said the person that sent you to him said that you would be too much to handle without sedation- and that person does not want you sedated- but he didn’t actually think you would be that much of a problem. He said you were like a panther and a cobra mixed together, it was over before he realized it. Quite the Vajra-esque image isn’t it?” She finished bandaging his hands, patting them with a large smile. “I really hope you lose soon. I would positively froth down there seeing you battered inside _and_ out!”

A psychopath. Riki always imagined in the movies that if you just talked to someone they would come through eventually, but her eyes were bright, happy. She could slit his throat and he would bleed to death wondering why, and think she had a nice smile.

“See you tomorrow!”

That night another man, not the warden, tried his luck. Riki fought him, beat him.

The next night was a man his size, small, but without a single bit of punch. Float like a butterfly, sting like cotton. Riki knocked him out and went to bed early, on the top bunk.

The next night really scared him, if he was being honest to himself. That was the only person he could be honest with. No one really talked to him. ‘Are you as strong as they say’ doesn’t count. Once he asked the doctor why was he here.

She had laughed, a cute thing that put a dimple in her chin.

“Don’t worry about that! You’ll never leave! Haha, you’re so funny. I like you. Wish you would lose though.”

He didn’t lose that night either, with the man nearly as big as Apollo, and ripped with steroids and anger. But he had no brains, thank god, and he rolled his big heavy fists around like a blind gorilla. It took some time to avoid being hit- one of them and Riki would be gone- and tire him out, but when he had achieved that, he kicked a knee in to fell him, and did his ol’ one-two-three-four-five-six, etc., until he knew the man was out for the count. Someone must have been counting because there were always men to take away the prisoner.

Riki would sleep.

It was often restless sleep fraught with nightmares, new and old, and then some positively blazing wet dreams about Iason, and a few about Guy, and a few of hookups long past. Those made him wake up more awake and alive than coffee.

He was never given caffeine.

Yet, he once told the doctor that he couldn’t get to sleep.

“Maybe if you lose, you’ll get a good night’s rest? It might all be over with that.”

Might.

Riki knew.

Riki knew ‘the person’ that put him in the jail would kill him as soon as he lost. He was surer of that than his own name. ‘The person’ was a sicko who heard about his past and present and wanted to see if they could break him. And once they broke him, as if he was just a mere toy, they would throw him out with the rest of the trash.

Who?

It wasn’t Jupiter. If Kyrie was the only window to Riki’s past life, she wouldn’t get far, and Riki doubted very much that she had friends to call upon in Amoi. Granted, she could have given him to ‘the person’, but, like that kidnapper said long before, this wouldn’t look good on her. She is probably first on any and all suspects’ list. The longer Riki was gone, the longer everyone would believe that someone with resources got rid of Riki without a trace, and few had the means and the motive more than Jupiter. With all the Blondies and Amoi staring at her, she would not be able to get any peace.

Plus, she would lose Iason forever.

Iason might even kill her, if he slacked on taking his meds and got angry enough.

If ‘the person’ didn’t get to her first. Riki wasn’t sure if she and ‘the person’ ever had face-to-face contact, but there must have been some communication that Riki would be sent to jail- Riki felt that was all Jupiter.

And the men in the night taking him to fucking Antarctica made it clear Jupiter didn’t know he was being taken from the jail- so that was all ‘the person’.

Riki felt the cold wall of the cell and realized he nearly fell asleep standing. It wouldn’t be the first time. He had dislocated his wrists (multiple times) but the first time he did, the odd doctor pretended not to notice, but she licked her lips when she left.

He assumed he would lose.

The assumption only gained strength when a man came in with wrapped hands. They weren’t for show. Snapping out like rubber bands, his fists nearly connected, and Riki wasted so much energy moving around because of his damn wrist. A block from those strong arms would only achieve more damage, probably shatter it, but he had to keep his arms up. He had to, he had to win, or else he would be in for a bitter night, and a bitter end.

Then the man stopped, having not broken a sweat, while Riki heaved against the wall. The man stretched his hands and rested his back against the bars. They said nothing, but Riki didn’t want to be caught off-guard, and he tried to stay awake for as long as possible, falling asleep against the cell wall over and over again.

The next day a completely different doctor was addressing his wounds, his wrist. She showed him, silently, how to pop it back into place. It hurt a lot less than he thought it would; he would pop various bones back into place, including his knees. Now that motherfucker hurt.

The previous fighter was still his next fighter about two weeks later. It was a long, arduous, and kind of fun.

“This fuckin’ cell.” His first words.

Riki laughed. “Works to my advantage, don’t it?”

“It does. And you’re makin’ the most of it. You were in college?”

“Am in.”

There was a brief, pitying expression on the man’s face before he replied, “It’s a waste. You should be a fighter, somewhere.”

Another laugh as Riki stretched his shoulders. “So that I can addle my brains to slop before I’m thirty? Get Parkinson’s by forty? No thanks. I’d rather use my strengths for a lover who can handle it.”

“Lucky fucking lover.” A swing from, a swipe from, his leg into between his, punches from all sides it felt like, and they hurt. Now this was an offense, very much how Riki fought. He could knock Riki down at any moment, but it would be like pushing over a boulder. Riki would make sure of that.

However, the man made the mistake of not sweeping him onto the floor, as Riki would have done, but pressing an arm into his chest and trying to turn him over by the shoulder.

If he had done that maneuver into a corner, he might have had a chance, but he did it on the left side of the sink, on empty, open wall, so Riki slipped through the slight gap on one side, and used all of his body to shove the man’s body over. He swept his foot, still entangled, but so small and easily removed, tripped the man over. The man’s head hit the sink at the front, and when Riki got atop him, he saw a gap where three teeth had been.

He stopped there, knowing he had won. Why wear himself out even more?

“Don’t…” Blood spat from the man’s lips. “Don’t stop. It doesn’t count…” More blood coughing up, staining the white shirt. “If you don’t, I have to get up and try again. They’ll know…Pt!” He spit finally. “They’ll know if I fake it. Whoever is in charge of this whole shebang has done this before. Done this for a long time. Come on. End it.”

Riki ended it.

Now, it began.

The man of the night arrived.

He… was familiar. More than familiar. Riki’s been waiting for this face a long time, for almost as long as he could remember. But he couldn’t remember who the man was.

He had at least ten years on Riki, although he didn’t look over the age of eighteen. He _had_ to be at least eighteen or else he would be in juvie instead of a prison. Very pretty. Riki wondered if he was one of the warden’s boys.

But then he remembered he was transferred from _that_ cold, cold prison to one possibly in Arizona, it was so goddamn hot. He was drugged during the day, probably lunch, and blindfolded, and he awoke to dry air and a burning sun.

He managed to see the date from a man who finagled his way to a watch on his wrist. It was fall. He’s been gone seven months at least.

Two months later, and this rather cute man, definitely not a fighter in any form or fashion unless that form was marshmallow and fashion tinsel, was in his cell. The doors, for the first time, were kept open behind him. Still, his familiar face faced forward, with a complicated expression. There had to be pity, there was always that, but there was also guilt, anger, sadness. Whatever he was promised for going into the cell wasn’t enough to keep his own feelings at bay.

“I have two options for you.” A clear, light voice, the ones magicians use to engage the audience. He even produced a stack of paper, pictures, from seemingly thin air, and one by one he showed them to Riki.

Riki remembered this game.

They were all pictures of Iason. Pictures he had taken, including the last one Riki ever took, where Iason was working behind the counter, staring down an asshole customer complaining about ketchup on her burger. Riki had seen the woman scrape a glob off of her child’s kid’s meal burger and put it on her own. Iason didn’t need to see that to know she was full of shit, because he made the damn sandwich. Eventually, the manger came to the front and gave her the food for free.

The manager had patted Iason’s shoulder and said in his customer service voice (awfully similar to a magician’s), “Everyone makes mistakes, ma’am.”

“He means you,” Iason had said to her.

Riki, along with almost everyone else there, started laughing, and not a few customers were wheezing around their food. The restaurant became a regular hotspot for _other_ people who worked in service, finding Iason’s antics cathartic.

“You listening?” the familiar man said.

Riki nodded slowly, watching every memory work through him with every picture.

Riki missed Iason.

He missed him so much.

He wanted those pictures.

He wanted them more than anything in the world.

He would do anything for them.

The other man continued, “Two options. You tell me to leave with these pictures.”

“No,” Riki answered nearly at the same time.

“Or. Or. You… You suck my dick, and I give them to you.”

“Okay.”

Riki heard outside the cell: “Did he say yes?”

The man stammered, “Y-you’re… You ain’t gonna think ‘bout it?”

Riki didn’t think, and for whoever was watching, ‘that person’ could watch his desperation as he crawled to the feet of the familiar man, and now, so low, he was even more… familiar! A childhood teenager that he hung with maybe? But if his face sparked such feelings from his chest, he must have been someone close, and important. A friend of Katze’s? Why couldn’t he remember?

It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be so bad. The man had a great face. A huge dick as he pulled down his pants. But it was flaccid- more than flaccid. Riki recognized the signs of utter revulsion.

“I guess you’re not the slightest bit lavender?”

The man coughed a laugh.

There were tears in his eyes.

“My man, I’m a fuckin’ rainbow of purple.”

Obviously, a man who jokes when he’s nervous. Riki asked, “Then what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to do this, much less to you.”

“What’s so special about me?” Riki demanded, feeling that the man knew a lot more than Riki could ever remember.

The truth spread on the man’s face, a shock of fear widening all his features. He must have said too much, and he started to sob, pushing Riki’s head away, and he cried at the camera built into the corner of the cell (technically a pod, and a group of pods were a cell, and a group of cells were a block).

“I’m sorry, Riki,” the man said, and brought his hands together to rip up the pictures.

Riki could only hear the awful tearing, searing his mind and soul. He never understood people who said that they saw red whenever they were very angry. He saw nothing but black and a face. He felt nothing, heard only the tear as an endless rip that he would never wake up from. He cried out, cried on the inside. This was the last person he ever wanted to hurt, not just because the man never wanted to hurt him, and thought blackmailing Riki was too far, but because deep down Riki knew him from somewhere. Riki liked him then. Loved him even.

His cell was a mess by the end of it. Somehow, he chased the guy around- the cell doors were shut as soon as the man tore the pictures- and beat him until someone(s) pulled him off and into the wall, exhausted.

When the cell was empty, when he was alone, when the dried tears were refreshed with new ones, Riki finally went into the bed, reaching underneath the pillow to feel the cool underside, and to have something to hold, to hug.

There was… Something there…

His fingers caressed the edges. The front. The back.

Photos. A good stack of them.

The familiar man must have slipped it underneath while getting his ass kicked. How did he have the wherewithal to do that, Riki had no idea, but he was beyond impressed. He had to wait until his next library visit, but there was ample opportunity to look at them there.

He did just that the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. His fighting form was better than ever, probably because of a good night’s rest filled with pleasant dreams about a man he had forgotten, dreams he also forgot. It felt as if the day before, the months before never happened with every scan through his private portfolio. There were quite a few pictures of Iason naked, the motorbike ones, the ones at Rupa’s.

He could almost feel Iason’s skin, the blissful look when he submitted so beautifully, his annoyed pout, his icy glares that sent a shiver down Riki’s spine.

Then he was transferred again.

The photos were in the last book he read.

They were gone, and he was crying around his blindfold. He cried without it. He cried in the morning, during the day, throughout his ritual, and before the night came, yet another different doctor checked him out, took blood samples. They didn’t know about the photos, so him all of a sudden in a state of constant depression would be baffling.

“Probably just trauma.”

The guard asked the doctor, “You think he broke?”

“Most likely.”

“A shame.”

Broke? Him? No way. No fucking way. He would never break for as long as he lived.

The only reason they would keep moving him would be because someone was looking for him- and was close to that goal. ‘The person’ had all the means in the world to get a different man in his cell every night. Plus, there would be more risk in moving him than keeping him hidden in one place.

Someone had to be looking for him. Someone who could get him if they knew where he was. Someone who could pay a warden to cough up the truth.

That night, the man tried to kill him.

That night, Riki broke a man’s jaw and six ribs.

The next night, the man tried to kill him.

That night, Riki broke an arm with his knee and elbow.

Over a few weeks of winter - the weather was no longer so warm and there were some freezing days- there was a constant number of men who were trying to kill him. He could see why they were able to: tattooed gang members, addicts with wobbling eyes, glassy eyed murderers. They were all probably people who weren’t ever getting out. Not without killing Riki.

An almost last-ditch effort, Riki could see it clearly. Someone found him, but ‘the person’ couldn’t let go of their pride for their pet project. They didn’t arm any of the prisoners; they didn’t drug Riki or otherwise weaken him, they never sent more than one person, not even more than one person a day.

Almost, because the actual last-ditch effort had a group of men.

Yet, amazingly, the guards actually stopped it.

They weren’t ‘the person’s’ people.

That morning there was no doctor, but he got a roommate. Someone his age who asked, “What are you in for?”

In hindsight, he realized everything was about to be over, but at the time, every fight was still fresh and raw and sensitive.

“Don’t know,” he told the other guy from atop the bunk, scooted all the way into the corner, where above his head the camera whirled. He tried not to be alone at all with his new roommate when they exited the cell, although he was now free to join everyone else instead of in the shadow of whatever guard was tasked to seeing to him that day, so being alone was never not an option. He still kept to himself and no one bothered him, but for that roommate.

The poor guy asked him that night, “You’re not going to slit my throat in my sleep, right?”

In a cracking voice unused to doing much more than breathing, Riki answered, “I don’t have anything to do that with.”

Again, in hindsight, not the most comforting thing to say to someone who had no plans to hurt him.

The man swallowed. “I’m not a kiddie fiddler if that’s what’s got you all in a twist. Just breaking and entering. Doing just three months.”

“Yea.”

In the middle of the night, his roommate called the guard and asked to see the warden. He whispered as if he thought Riki was asleep, “I think this guy is going to kill me! Please, just let me talk to someone. I’ll sleep on the floor in solitary if that’s what it takes.”

The very next morning the guard woke him up bright and early: “You’re having breakfast with the captain.”

So, they called them captain here, Riki had thought idly, as he caught his roommate peeking out from underneath the blanket.

Riki was brought again to a real office, except it was bare, with not even certificates on the wall or doohickeys on the shelf. Just a laptop on a desk overrun with paperwork, and a tired-looking woman at the chair. Breakfast consisted of bagels and different toppings. There was Nutella and bananas, and a toaster oven.

There was coffee, too, but Riki didn’t need it then and he didn’t need it now. It would probably make him all jittery and unfocused, and there was no reason to let his guard down against a woman who definitely knew how to hold her own. Probably actually trained in krav maga or something and would knock his ass to the floor.

She stood with a large cup of coffee, and looked at him with blue eyes and a tiredness that seemed to wear into her bones.

“Are you going to be a problem, Robert?”

“Who the fuck is Robert?”

She sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose. She slammed her mug down. “Let’s not fuck around. What did you say to Matthew?”

“Who’s Matthew?”

“Your cellmate.”

“I told him I had nothing to slice his throat with, and acknowledged he was not a pedophile, just a robber,” Riki told her, biting into his own slice of bagel.

“You know that sounds like if you had something to slice his throat with, you would.”

Riki just then realized that.

“Whoops. I didn’t mean that. I wouldn’t hurt anyone with a weapon.”

“Oh?” Her peppered eyebrows rose. “You are still going to maintain the position that you don’t remember what you did?”

“I never heard, actually, what I did. Kind of just locked in and fought, and transferred, and fought, and transferred, and fought.”

The captain reached behind her, grabbing a clipboard. “Oh, yea? Says here you’ve been here since March? You’re here for- well, everything. Murder, rape, robbery, everything you need for being in a gang.”

Riki shrugged. “It’s not true.”

“Right.” She groaned. Then, she took a banana, peeled it, and inquired nonchalantly, “So what do you think your name is, Mr. Not-Robert?”

“My name’s Riki.”

“Huk!” she choked on the banana, trying to cough up the piece, and she reached out her hand to stop Riki from helping. The banana dislodged itself on its own and the captain walked around the desk, typing hard and fast at her computer. After a moment, she turned her screen around, demanding, “Who’s this?”

He could hardly believe it; tears already started to form.

“That’s… Iason.”

“Oh, fuck, fucking fuck. You know he’s about to start looking for you a whole state over? Some backwoods prison over there said they had you and they were going to _search_ there, and if somehow they don’t find you there, they are going to move over, further away from here!”

Riki could barely process what she was saying. “How… How do you know that?”

“Because the State Attorney General just admitted to taking a ‘donation’- a bribe, in other words- and paused all transfers, and _asked_ the bordering states to do the same, which a lot of them did. I never intended to look because they said they… Goddamn, no wonder the last captain fucking left all of a sudden.”

“What? You’re new?”

She snorted, gesturing towards her desk. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Riki shrugged. “Don’t know what to look for.”

“You’re… You’re lucky. I know you’re not… completely lucky, but usually they don’t find guys like you, especially rarely alive, and, shit, never in one piece.” She was still typing away on her computer as she talked- did she have two brains? “The last lady, she up and disappeared, but I guess whoever was in charge of all this crazy ass shit had one last trick up their sleeve. Could have worked and you would have probably been shipped west instead of east, where everyone is looking for you.”

Riki sniffed.

“Oh, Jesus, don’t start crying, ‘cuz I’ll start and how is anyone going to respect me?” Even as she said that, she wiped away tears. “But this great. Very good.”   
  


“Yea… Good… good.”


	2. May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iason went looking. Did you expect otherwise?

May

Iason finally came to terms that he was gone.

Riki was gone.

Two months had passed. No Riki, no body, no word. Iason hoped every day for a ransom note. None ever came.

They were at the house on Eos. ‘They’ included his parents, the other Blondies, their parents _minus one notable exception_ , his Amoian friends, and their grandma.

Grandma Langeais was everything Iason hoped she would be. A no-nonsense old bat who demanded respect in her words, but her actions were nothing but loving. Even as literally everyone protested for her to rest, she was up every day cooking ‘up a storm’ as her grandchildren would often say. As the other adults- adultier adults- helped her cook, she would slyly flirt with all the women, and she loved the rotund and shapely mother of Ruphias the most, calling her bebé, and letting her be one of the only ones to try her food- everybody else was, “The food will be ready when I say it’s ready!” She also favored Ruphias himself, Leon, Hubert, and Guy as well.

And Iason. Actually, Grandma Langeais didn’t let him ‘try’ as so much as forced him to eat.

“You gon’ waste my food that I worked so hard fo’?” she would say. Iason would finally, guiltily, eat a pancake or something and a glass of milk.

One day, Zeke, joking, asked Langeais to do omelets the next day.

“I… I can’ make no omelets.” It was the quietest she’s ever said anything, and her weathered hands shook. She sniffed hard, and for the first time since Iason met her- hours after Riki was processed and they had tried to pay bail- she began to cry. “The li’l brat loved his damn omelets.”

“Oh, Grammy,” Mimea said softly, going to her feet to wipe her tears with a ready tissue.

Grammy hadn’t said Riki’s name, and she never did, only referring to him in affectionate nicknames: li’l brat, pain in the ass, smart-mouth, and rake were just some of the few, but there was never any confusion about whom she meant.

For the second time, she was crying, in exactly the same chair.

They had just asked the last jail, the last police department in Amoi, if they had any information on Riki. They had looked; they reported the results of their investigation.

Nothing.

“It’s your fault,” Guy finally said into the nothingness touched only by quiet tears.

It was.

“It’s all of our fault,” Raoul told him.

“Iason most of all.”

Maxie, Norris’s older lover, said gruffly, “This is not the time, Guy.”

“When is the time? When we find a body?”

Now, Grandma intervened, “You take that back.”

“Why? It’s true. This is how he pays back that goddamn car, with his life.”

Iason flashed back to a happier time, when Riki sat opposite the world from Iason up the stairs, and had to shout at the top of his lungs to make sure Iason heard him. He was being so damn cute and it was hard to stay angry at him, and even his parents were being won over by his earnestness. For some reason, the total doofus was sending his parents money through the mail, until he yelled into the ether that his bank froze his account for ‘suspicious activity’.

“Hey! I know what I can do to help make up for ruining shit for ALL of you! It’ll be a week of me doing whatever you guys want me to do!”

Not even looking at him from his spot downstairs, watching tv, Gilbert scoffed, “So a little week and that’s supposed to make everything all better? You might as well start paying monetarily.” He didn’t know that Riki was sending money already.

“No, I mean each of you get a whole week!”

A hard pull from Guy made Riki stumble a bit at the rail, while looking over his shoulder in surprise, and then expectation as Guy shook his head.

His best friend said just as loudly as Riki, “That sounds like something that will get out of hand, very quickly! What if they all wanted you to be their sex slave for the week?!”

“Oh, no!” Riki said in complete feigned shock. “Not that! A bunch of gorgeous blonde men demanding sexual favors of me! What? Rubbing them down with oil? Massaging them? A tryst underneath a desk? The horror!”

Gaze leaving his phone to actually give Riki the time of day, Iason had proffered then: “What about dressing Riki up in a maid outfit?!” He watched with relish as Riki licked his teeth in minor discomfort. “Getting him to kneel and… lick our shoes? Take a few pictures?”

Gideon had then joined him: “Maybe posing on a very nice car…”

“What nice car?” Riki had quipped.

“Stick a dildo up inside him,” Zeke added. “Make him walk around the cafeteria!”

Leon cried, “That sounds familiar!”

Iason smiled at his phone, and said aloud, “I’ll take it.”

Guy’s equally victorious, equally exasperated look after that promise was only matched by this glare now at Iason, with Grandma at his side. She had now stood up to take his shaking arm into her own shaking arms.

“C’mon, baby, sit down next to me.”

Guy’s rather gorgeous brown eyes, steely and uncompromising, bore into Iason’s soul.

“It’s your fault. You know that, right?”

“Of course, I do,” Iason said. He wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong. Iason sought refuge in his hands, on that same chair he used when teasing Riki.

His statement only made Guy shout even more angrily, “He should have left you to fucking freeze out there! Kept your crazy ass and equally fucking crazy-ass, evil grandmother out of his life!”

Iason took a shuddering breath, and said again, “I know.” If he started crying, his dad would step in and there will be a fight, and Guy will not win.

“And now you can’t even convince said grandmother to return Riki? Riki’s a _goddamn pawn_ between a couple of rich fucks!”

“I told you Jupiter didn’t do it!”

Iason has said it a thousand times. A thousand, thousand times. No one believed him, even as he told them in painstaking detail how he went to Jupiter’s office and banged on her door three times, stretching his face and hoping that it didn’t look stiff and swollen from crying all night.

“Come in, Iason.”

He had. Jupiter sat there, with what counted as a smile on her bland face. That annoying, yet cunning expression that would mean that she has won what she wanted.

But it was…. Complete. As if this was it. Would she make an ultimatum? Be mine! And forget about Riki, and he’ll be returned to freedom? Free to not be with Iason was his only recourse. Of course, it was a complete victory for Jupiter if that happened.

“I have told you about banging like a caveman, but I guess that is what happens when you bed one.”

“Jupiter.”

“Do not worry. I have no plans for any of the others, but I am sure your beast of a father would make sure it didn’t happen.”

What… was she saying?

“If this place wasn’t laden with inferiors, this wouldn’t have been nearly as easy. Still, it is also the last chance.”

“What are you talking about?” Iason tried.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Jupiter skirted easily. “I woke up rather early this morning. In any case, it shall be amusing to see Riki’s face from now on. Or how you might shield him from my sight.”

Iason had realized with equal parts relief and anxiety that although Jupiter got Riki arrested, most definitely, she may not be responsible for his sudden disappearance.

“I’m surprised he’s not here with you to bluster about.”

Oh.

With quivering lips, Iason told her, “Riki has been lost.”

“He has separated from you!” Jupiter said with little repressed joy.

“No. He’s gone. Someone bailed him out and took him… No one has been able to find him.”

Jupiter chuckled, covering her mouth. “Was that your attempt to entrap me?”

Iason had tried again, “It’s not that, Jupiter.” Why was he even trying to inform her, he didn’t know, but his mind couldn’t cope with Jupiter not orchestrating everything. She was always an obstacle, always will be. She had to be now. She had to be, because then Iason would do anything she wanted so that Riki returned safe and sound.

“It’s not?” Jupiter laughed into her hand again.

“Kyrie was probably the one you sent to pay bail. I am guessing you paid someone to not remember who you sent? Whoever you sent was met with the fact that someone _else_ had paid bail. That morning.”

Jupiter’s face twitched. “Riki was arrested in the afternoon, is what I heard through the grapevine, as they say. You should get your story straight. But let’s end this farce. I actually am a busy person, and don’t have all the time in the world to spend on ungrateful sons.” She picked up her phone and tapped one button, then relaxed against her chair to wait.

Iason almost said that he was a great-nephew, but then he realized that maybe he was so out of it that he couldn’t recognize Jupiter playing him, playing with him. Maybe someone will bring Riki, now, take him out of this nightmare.

Unfortunately, it was only Sean.

Sean looked like death.

His eyes widened at Iason. His lips trembled, spit spreading between: “I didn’t… I didn’t…” He didn’t finish. From his jacket pocket he produced an envelope of money and placed it gently on Jupiter’s desk.

Jupiter looked at Sean, eyes moving in robotic tics, and then to Iason, and back to Sean. “When did you get this?” she asked softly.

Sean once more looked to Iason. “Day of.”

“Day. Of.”

“Y-Y-Yea.”

“And the reason why I had to call you into my office to get this is because?”

“I thought… I could find… Before…”

Jupiter put up her hand. “Shush, you idiot. Why?”

“Someone had… already paid… that morning.”

Jupiter went completely still.

“Out. Both of you. Out.”

Later, everyone thought it was a really good show she put on, including his parents, Raoul, Guy…

“She didn’t do it.”

“She did! And now you!” Guy stabbed a finger at Iason. “You!” At Apollo. “And you!” At Eris- then Apollo again, because that’s not acceptable.

The door to the house opened.

Brecht Domina walked in.

Guy seethed through his teeth. “You… Have… A lotta nerve.”

Iason glanced at Brecht, no longer any angrier with him as he was with Jupiter. If things had gone as Jupiter and Brecht planned, this would have been no more than an expensive, elaborate prank.

But someone took advantage of the circumstance. Was it someone Jupiter knew?

Riki had disappeared from the jail.

It clicked in Iason’s mind just as Brecht walked over to Gilbert and his wife, Zirca, as they both stared at him like a stranger, an evil, a murderer.

Django sped through Iason’s thoughts. The man who pretended to be a police officer. Who tried to get into a party full of reservations with a fake reservation…

Had Django been in on the prank? Did Django tell someone else?

“Well?” Zirca prompted Brecht, with a firm finger into his shoulder, not allowing him to walk a single step more towards her and her son.

The air awaited Brecht’s answer: “There is no… record of the company anywhere.” He ran a hand through his beard, usually handsomely shapely, but now ragged at the edges with stray hairs far from the main group. “All the emails we passed between us, the ones I sent, they all lead to nowhere, as if they never arrived, as if their destination never existed. The place where the orientation had been was cleaned, thoroughly. It may as well as have just been built. I think… I think I had less control of the situation than I had thought.”

“You… Think?” Gilbert whispered, but it was so quiet already, he was easily heard. “You mean Jupiter? Right?”

“No. Not. Not Right. Not Jupiter. I said me.”

Brecht was a slimy asshole who made the worst of mistakes, but he was not a good liar. He needed someone else, or a lot of else’s, to make all this happen.

He also had needed a cell phone, not to make a call, but to send Gilbert a message between those confusing days in the mix of that late March and early May window.

“Everyone!”

Gilbert’s excited voice came from the center of the house.

“My dad has an idea that apparently all the rest of them have agreed with!”

‘Of them’ was of course the rest of their parents.

And if Gilbert was screaming at the top of his lungs about something that their parents agreed on, then it was probably something everyone needed to hear, and that was why everyone came together to listen.

It was simple, and actually pretty awesome, for apparently there were companies that hired people _per event_. It covered everything from picking oranges for an independent farm run by an elderly couple, to babysitting children of substitute teachers working at alternative schools (“What the fuck is an alternative school?”), to providing customer service as cashiers at this baseball game or that football game or yet another game somewhere else. It was all underneath the same company, which they had to apply for. The scheduling could be handled day of, or a week, or even a month in advance.

The major upside to this was that there was no need for finesse in hiring. Everyone could come work together, and there were more ways to truly keep on top of everyone’s work habits. No fear of a manager saying the wrong thing and losing every bone in his spine to make a certain someone not treat himself to a box of fries whenever he wanted- as was part of Iason’s plans for the future, if Riki’s disappearance didn’t happen.

There was even a grading system for every shift everywhere. So, a certain father could see that so-and-so made a D in customer service, and so forced him to schedule a certain son to work in a daycare full of infants the next day.

First, though, an online application, another section after the first part, then an interview, then yet another one, AND THEN A THIRD for three of them- Raoul, Ruphias, and Leon. According to them, ‘live practicing’ customer service with real people (“What are fake people?”), was absolute torture.

Still, they were all hired. It was a short, hectic week as they looked over the myriad of jobs available, especially over the summer, which was the next break after the nonexistent Spring Break. With every shift technically being voluntary, there were incentives of all kinds for every shift: free tickets, free food, prizes, extra money for understaffed shifts.

It was almost like a gamble.

Excited, Iason came in the morning for orientation with Raoul. In three hours, Zeke, Gideon, and Leon would be attending orientation. In six hours, Aisha, Gilbert, and Marcus, and so on and so forth, over the next few days, the last few days, where they all _still_ had to go to school, and _still_ had to attend their present jobs.

“It’s not even that different,” Raoul complained, looking over the itinerary. “It’s mostly still customer service.”

Iason shrugged. “You can ask for a shift somewhere else. There’s a bunch of staff needed for research studies.”

Face relaxing, Raoul said, “I see that.” He nodded. “That’s nice.”

“I actually don’t even remember seeing anything about fashion stores, unless manning those ugly afghan stations count.”

“They do,” was Raoul’s wry answer.

“Can everyone please sit down? We have to get started if we want to beat the work traffic.” A business casually dressed woman stepping quickly came in clapping, sending a group of similarly dressed people to pass out the new hire packets, a thick thing that Iason felt probably included selling his kidney, but he didn’t feel like reading, and he never would. He sat down like the rest, about forty or so other people.

“And… Bad news everyone. We had outsourced to a new company which handled the applications. Somehow, some way, we lost everybody’s information but for the very last page. So, for paperwork’s sake, and to prove you are not slaves we have wrangled up to work for us-” Light laughter ensued. “-we have to have you sign all the stuff you did online.”

Boos erupted loud and numerous.

“AND EVEN THOUGH,” the lead director yelled over the complaints, “YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE ALL THIS- please feel free to ask questions if you have them.”

There were no questions.

Over the next few days, all thirteen of them re-signed the ‘application’. None of them read through it a second time, or what they thought would have been a second time. It looked the same, so why question it?

There were questions from their parents.

“I never consented to this,” Apollo told Iason over the phone.

“You didn’t? Gilbert said that Mr. Domina said that you said you did.”

“And I am saying, now, that I did not. You will not be doing this.”

Iason whined, “Why not? You can see everything!”

“I do not want to micromanage you on a day to day basis. I want you to learn _responsibility_ , to learn how to make _good decisions_ on your own. This company is bare bones. Although what they do is very similar to two other businesses in the region, this one itself has no history. I do not trust any of that.”

“Well, I am _deciding_ that I do trust all of that, and I will take _responsibility_ for anything that happens.”

Iason almost heard his father rolling his eyes.

“If you find yourself in a ditch without a kidney, I will not give you mine.”

“We’re not even the same blood type,” muttered Iason.

“I think I should increase your workload twofold.”

“No! Please, I’m sorry, I take it back.”

Still, Iason feared for his kidney when he received an email from said company about how, now, the last page from the original applications have been lost. Well, they were never there in the first place, but the outsourced company didn’t want to lose out on a client- at least, that was what Iason believed.

It was a quick affair. He walked in to see the lady director in the lobby outside the orientation hall. She was standing by a tall table, a few stacks of papers next to her.

And Mr. Domina, i.e. Brecht Domina, Gilbert’s father stood next to her.

As Brecht tried to keep a straight face, the director did the talking, “Doing all this crap for a third time had me looking through the applications through sheer boredom and I noticed that thirteen people were referred to this company through Brecht Domina.” She shuffled the papers in front of her. “His son I can understand. The rest is a bit much. It doesn’t help that the whole bunch of you look like models. So how do you think that looks to people who might have seen you attend the orientation, knowing that they didn’t get a position?”

Iason saw where this was going, and, at the time, that is how he excused Brecht’s discomfort.

“We will work very hard,” Iason promised, taking a paper.

She took it back. “Then you can sign this.” A sheet of paper, with a bit more writing than the first, slid before Iason. “A disclosure agreement.” It said such at the top. “That you have applied of your own will and not through the nepotism of myself or Brecht, or any combination thereof.”

Iason signed it.

“Now, you can sign the agreement to work for this company.”

Another paper slid underneath the pads of his fingers, and this other one he signed just as readily.

“Thank you very much. ‘

Later, Gilbert would say, “My dad is such an idiot sometimes. He could have just paid her to keep her mouth shut.”

Aisha had answered, “Your dad couldn’t convince a burning man out of a stove.”

“That is true.”

Iason would a bit later go to work. The next morning he went to class. That afternoon he went to work, and Riki soon joined him to once more try to convince the manager to hire him. Riki had gone straight to the office- “This boy!”- and the manager would chase him back there. Iason knew Riki came just in time for Iason to take a break (he _always_ took his break on time, no matter how busy it was), and Iason was a bit sillier than he was before. Maybe he was preening, just a bit, for Riki.

Then the manager committed sexual assault; Iason almost gave in to Riki, feeling a flash of desire with his hot hand on his thigh; and then, his biggest regret nearly ever, not since the storm in the park with Jupiter, where he dropped Riki off at his dorm and went home.

That night was a blur.

A nightmare.

Guy’s hysterical call of how Riki’s been arrested; a call nearly simultaneous with Mimea’s, who heard that someone’s motorbike was found with enough cocaine to make it seem someone was selling; and a sobbing, sobbing call from Gilbert from his room. He only cried when he has absolutely lost it, lost everything. He probably thought everyone would hate him when his dad messaged him: _He’ll be out as soon as we post bail. Don’t get hysterical._

They only hated his dad.

“My dad fucking… He fucking! Our applications were all witness disclosures. We basically signed off that we knew Riki was dealing drugs.”

Iason had whispered, “What?” His phone wobbled on his ear. It was far too much at once.

Raoul had run back to his room. He and Marcus were the only ones who had copies of their applications, both old and new, but of course they never bothered to read the new one. He came back to the central staircase flipping through the application, slowly, with shallow breaths, whispering, “He’s right. And it’s not even mixed with real pages of the applications. It’s page after page after page of us basically… snitching on Riki.”

Marcus added, own voice quiet, “The last page was us signing in front of a licensed detective- Louisa Abernathy, the company director- and another witness.”

“Mr… Domina?” Leon clarified.

“Yea.”

“Is he coming?”

Gilbert nodded, covering his ears. When he cried, his ears would pop, and he had gotten into the habit of holding them as they did. Still holding them when Mr. Domina arrived, his father pointedly ignored him. Beard trimmed, wearing his blue vest and cream-colored dress shirt, as he had hung up his jacket on his arm, he looked ready to leave.

“Well?” he said, roving a confident look among them. “Get your other friends. We can bail him out. They should have finished processing him by now.”

That was that. They just had to call and meet up at the jail.

Once the gang of cars were there, though, Guy had screamed at Brecht, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Brecht walked past him to the front double doors, saying to the receptionist without so much as a ‘how do you do’, “We would like to bail out someone that was just put in here. A Riki. He doesn’t have a last name. He should-”

The receptionist laughed, putting up a hand. “I know who Riki is, Sir,” she told him, smirking. A colleague came in with a fast food bag and two drinks, putting down one in front of the receptionist as she continued, “What? You new in town? One of his friends already bailed him out.”

Brecht’s indefatigable arrogance faltered. He pointed behind him to the crowd of Riki’s closest friends. “One of them?”

“No. The two-eyed one.”

The other receptionist sputtered, “Pffft. Everyone’s got two eyes.”

“Shut the fuck up, you know what I mean- excuse my language about this dumbass- whoops, again, excuse me. The blue-and-green eyed one.”

Digging through the bag to pick up a couple of burgers, the colleague said to no one in particular, “No, the guy from this morning paid his bail. The big white guy.”

“Shh!” the receptionist shushed him, looking at certain other members of their group with particular emphasis. “What do you mean ‘this morning’? Riki wasn’t brought in but a few hours ago.”

“What? Really? The system says he was brought in last night and out this morning.”

Flickering her eyes a bit in confusion, she whispered, “When did you get here?”

“Noon. Why?”

“So, you didn’t see Riki being brought in? Weren’t you at the front before me?”

“No, the new guy was. I was posted in the back for paperwork, and came to ask you for dinner.”

“The new guy? The new guy was supposed to have started tomorrow. He came today?”

The man put a sandwich away. “Yea… He did.”

The receptionist looked around. “Where the fuck is he?” She stood, not excusing herself this time.

“I thought he was in the bathroom…”

“Oh, my god. Please, Sir, everyone, just wait. We’ll figure things out.”

They figured out nothing.

A missing persons report was filed immediately because of the circumstances, and an investigation started early the very next morning, when the rest of the parents arrived. The viewing of the security tapes was attended by everyone that filled the house later. The new guy, the white guy, certainly arrived a day early at approximately two o’ clock, about an hour or so before Riki came in.

“That’s… Not the new guy…” the receptionist whispered into her hands.

The rest needed no explanation. The tapes showed who helped bring Riki in- they will never find him. The tapes showed someone releasing Riki from his room- they will never find him. The tapes showed him being put in a van- they will never find it.

Everything and everyone simply up and disappeared.

“I didn’t plan this,” Brecht had said as they walked from the main jail, with promises to follow up, and instructions to go to the other departments.

“I didn’t plan this,” Brecht said to Guy weeks later in the house. “I really didn’t. He was supposed to be out-”

“He’s not,” Guy cut him off. He turned to Iason, stomped towards him with his shoes squeaking against the floor. “He’s not!”

Apollo didn’t let him get any closer. “Back off,” Iason’s father warned in a voice that left no room for argument.

“I have to back off? You kidding?”

“This gets us nowhere. Gets _you_ nowhere.”

“I think I deserve to blow off some steam! Riki’s gone because of _him_.”

Apollo sighed. “He’s just as affected as you are. Why would you-”

“Just as affected!” Guy yelled incredulously, with a matching expression and raised hands. “He can buy a new Riki, but Riki was irreplaceable to me!”

What stupidity was Guy spewing? Even though Iason knew, knew in his heart Guy was just grieving, as much as anyone else, more than most, Iason would not accept anyone that doubted his love for Riki.

So he stood, and his mother stood with him, whispering somewhere over his shoulder, “Don’t escalate. Sit down, Iason.” Even his father actually had an arm pushing him back! Whose side were they on?

“Riki is irreplaceable to me as well.” Good, he sounded sane when he said that, not as if he was ready to tear off someone’s head by their ponytail.

The three Minks fazed Guy none. “Impossible. You’ve known him for just a few months. I know him down to his fucking knocking on a door!”

“And if he walks through that door, he’ll pass you right up and come to _me_.”

He will die regretting ever saying that to Guy, no matter how true it was, nor how many times he apologized over the decades. So steep did he feel the shame, he felt it at that moment, when he had not a little reason to be peeved by Guy’s accusations. The room felt like the noise was in the negative decibels, and he heard his blood running in his veins, and he watched the energy, the life fly out of Guy. The physical representation of giving up, on Iason, on Riki, embodied itself in Guy’s slackened face, as he stepped back, walked away, walked out the door.

Iason wouldn’t see him until Riki returned.

A week later, Iason, everyone, was still at a loss on what to do, although the adults- the parents- were now pressuring Jupiter with everything they had. However, no evidence came to the fore, even after questioning Kyrie and Sean. Lawyers were getting involved, Grandma Langeais sued Mr. Domina with help from Mrs. Domina, and Mrs. Domina wanted a divorce even.

A mess.

Iason sat outside the Deans' building to drink his coffee as his parents went on a fool’s errand to ‘talk some sense’ into Jupiter.

It didn’t help that she refused to confess to ever helping out with the whole kidnapping in the first place.

It didn’t matter. Iason tried not to think of how Riki and everyone helped him up off of the very same bench months ago.

Then someone sat next to him.

Kyrie.

“Are you sure you should be out of your hiding hole?” Iason teased half-heartedly. “You don’t know when Guy will come out of the woodworks and beat your ass.”

“He’ll kill me,” Kyrie answered, leaning his head forward as Iason was leaning forward. From the corner of his eyes, he looked as tired as Iason felt.

“Yea.”

In the quietest tones, Kyrie spoke quickly, “I was there by the van when they took Riki. Don’t get up! Don’t move.”

“If you’re fucking with me, _I’ll_ kill you.” Iason stayed still nonetheless.

“Look, Jupiter wanted me to pay bail as soon as Riki got to the jail. I was _waiting_ for Riki to come. It was all set up for Riki to go to the jail near Laverly, and I basically pay for him to get the handcuffs off. He wasn’t even supposed to be processed.”

Iason shook his head. “But… He was taken to the downtown jail.”

“Exactly. When no one came on time- and I tell you, Jupiter has everything down to the fuckin’ second- I went downtown ‘cuz that’s the only place else he could be. I’m talkin’ fifteen minutes, tops. I get there, and the guy up front says _you_ already paid.”

“But they said someone _else_ paid that morning!”

Kyrie nodded minutely, staring at the ground. “I had a mike near the front office. I heard pretty much everything down there.”

“Down?”

“I was on my comp across the street, fifth floor. While all of you are figuring things out up front, I see people getting a van ready, the vans they use for transfers. Thing is, I just saw the exact same van, with the exact same license plate, do the exact same thing, except this time, all the prisoners came from some other room the prisoners before did. They didn’t look that much like prisoners either.

“And, you know, I don’ think it was no coincidence. So they leaves the van, and I goes down and I puts- I put a GPS underneath it once it gets dark. Just a really expensive ‘find my phone’ bit.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You mean go back inside where they managed to hide a whole person after infiltrating a police station? Who-the-fuck-ever _they_ are? You guys were there all goddamn night. By the time I saw my chance, I was then stuck underneath the van when they brought Riki out and into it. I could hear them fighting with Riki.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t worry. He can fight with one arm and one leg and still win. Seriously, he sprained his wrist and broke his ankle during football and people thought that was a good time for payback. It weren’t no time for that.”

Iason smiled, just imagining.

“Then they drive off. And I run.”

“ _Away_ from the police station?!”

“Yea, because fucking Django was there.”

I knew it, Iason thought triumphantly.

“And… I heard him talking to someone. They were wondering why I hadn’t gone back to campus.”

“They were looking for you… because they knew what you were trying to do. But why would that matter?”

Kyrie finally looked at him with an upturned eyebrow. “Think about it. I was the only one who had a difference in time frame. If I had gone back to Jupiter, I coulda told her that Riki was already free, and she would know.”

“But then you wouldn’t have been able to put the GPS on the van.”

“Right.”

“And?”

“He’s in a jail in Detroit.”

“Are… Are you sure?”

“Well, naw. But why would that parti’cler van stop at the J. M. Mars Penitentiary in Detroit?”

“To drop Riki off.”

“Exactly. So. Here’s the thing. You have to wait a bit longer.”

“Longer? You’re out of your mind. Riki could be-”

“In jail, having god knows what done to him, yea. But he is alive, and he is going to stay alive. Whoever fucked Jupiter over wants Riki alive. Maybe she crossed the wrong guy and they are using Riki as leverage. But they wouldn’t drive to freeze their balls off in Detroit just to kill him. They could have killed him here.”

Kyrie was making nothing but sense. Iason started feeling something that was snatched from him long ago: a hope.

And impatience.

“Why do I have to wait!”

“Because Guy plans to have a funeral.”

Iason’s mind skidded off the rails: “What?”

“He plans to have a funeral for Riki, and if you go, and cry, which you probably will, and if I go, and cry, which I’ll try to do, whoever has Riki over in Detroit can feel comfortable that no one will go looking for him.”

“That’s when I can go.”

“Yep.” Kyrie slipped an envelope across Iason’s knee. “It’s important that it’s only you. But if you really, really need back up, bring Katze.”

“…Katze…” He took the envelope, now realizing the secrecy, and decided not to open it.

“Katze can kill. We have no idea how Riki’s ‘napper feels about you. What if they hate you? Don’t tell Katze I ever told you this, but he used to be in a gang, that’s how he got that scar, and that’s why he is four years older but still in the same grade. But… I wouldn’t bring nobody. They won’t feel you’re really a threat all alone.”

That was a plan, and it was a plan no one would follow through on except for him, and everyone would try to dissuade him from acting it out.

He had just one more question: “Why did you do all this?”

Kyrie sighed. “Don’t get all sympathetic… Jupiter can throw me under the bus at any time. Your dad can find me and beat my ass. Guy can get to me and, no joke, beat my ass to death. I can’t go anywhere without people truly and seriously trying to hurt me, telling me to kill myself and shit.

“So. The faster you find Riki, in an effective manner like I told you, the faster I can go back to my regular life of just really annoying my childhood friends for money.”

Iason closed his eyes. “Fair enough.”

When he opened his eyes, Kyrie was walking away.

Iason saw him again after the funeral. It had to be after because Guy refused Iason attending, and Iason, still feeling awful about what he had said, attended to his wishes. Kyrie knew he was never going to be allowed in, and he kept his distance until they buried an empty casket underneath a small, bare tombstone that didn’t do Riki justice. In whispers and gossip, many people said the same.

It was Riki.

It was the year.

That’s it.

“Barely better than an unmarked grave,” Iason spat, stomach churning still at the freshly tumbled soil. His parents were way back in their black car, waiting for him, willing to wait a long time.

Kyrie shrugged. “If he was dead, it doesn’t matter. Not like he would come and check to make sure his tombstone was pretty. No, he’ll do some dumb heroic shit like make sure everyone moved on and crap.”

Kyrie may be a weasel, but he wasn’t an idiot, and he knew his former friends.

“Are you taking anyone?”

Iason knew what he meant.

“No. But I have a burner phone. I told him.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. He told me not to tell anyone else. He said he would, when I get to Michigan.”

Kyrie walked away.

Iason took a flight to Detroit under the cover of night, from and to the exact airports Kyrie had suggested. When Katze saw the specifics, he explained to Iason: “You see how this airport is on the way back to your place? At this time, it’ll probably look like you had an argument with your parents and was driving back alone. And here, when you get there, you’re only ten miles from Mars. Kyrie really put some thought into this.”

“I see that.”

He arrived in Detroit and it was still SO cold even though the summer was just starting to heat up. There was a ritzy hotel just two miles away, and Iason took a cab there and got a room. Again, Kyrie’s recommendation, and Katze had an explanation for that as well.

“If things go south, you can go back to the airport in a hurry. A public crowded place instead of somewhere in downtown Detroit, which, don’t.”

Of course not.

He didn’t sleep, despite the luxury all around him. All he could think about was Riki behind bars, with people two times his size who were willing to get their hands dirty for much less than survival. Riki alone with whatever was planned for him and unable to escape.

He awoke early and called the prison, asking about what documents and other precautions did he need to visit a prisoner. They said no weapons, ID, background check.

He went with those necessities in mind.

Some snags hit when he arrived. Since his ID was out-of-state, he needed his social security card and birth certificate or a passport. Luckily, he already had that, but then the man in charge of visitation said that the background check will take at least three days, because of course it does. He also says not to come back with a cell phone or any other electric device. Iason spent some time in Detroit, haunting the bar and trying his damned best not to become an alcoholic.

He went back to the prison. His background check is great, passport kosher.

“You’ll have to come back. Your wallet is too big.”

Iason felt the cartilage creaking in his neck as he craned it awkwardly to the side. “My wallet is too big. Right. Why can’t I leave it with you?”

“We’re not allowed to keep anything, for security.”

“I see. Anything else I should know not to bring?”

“You should be fine without the wallet.”

He goes back to the hotel, and instead of going to the bar and drinking his anger away, he went to the gym. He imagined himself bench-pressing a certain person into space, disintegrating in the atmosphere.

The next visit, that certain person was nowhere to the found, and the person there said, “You can’t have a belt.”

“I wore a belt last time, and the person said I was fine just not bringing my wallet.”

“Sorry. You can’t have the belt.”

Iason understood now why there was a thick glass between visitors and the rest of the complex, because he could strangle the man right now, then walk over his goddamn carcass to wherever they had Riki.

Yet, the glass separated them and Iason once more had to leave and come back. He simply wore a shirt and jeans the next time. It was forty degrees, but he didn’t want anyone saying _shit_.

He made it past security.

“Who do you want to see?” said the woman at yet another reinforced window. To the side was a door, and Iason saw prisoners in orange outfits and people wearing the barest of clothes talking to them.

“His name is Riki.” Iason hardly breathed!

“Will he know who you are?”

“Yes!”

She clicked at her computer. “How do you spell Riki?”

“R-I-K-I.”

“Ah. Got it.” She corrected whatever spelling she had before. “There’s no prisoner here by that name. Would he go by any other name? A moniker perhaps? Many of our prisoners put a nickname to help with secure visitations.”

Iason stared at her.

“Sir?”

“Can I… tell you what he looks like?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Look.” Iason reached for his pocket, but he remembered that he left his cell phone back in the room. “He’s a missing person, and I received a tip that he was here.”

“Then you need to go through the proper channels. If you’re literally looking for a person from a missing persons list, then this is just vigilante investigation. You need a warrant to search.”

“Just look him up! And please, just tell me if you’re seen him?”

“I cannot do that, Sir.”

“You can! You just fucking won’t!”

Well, that got him kicked out.

He walked away from the prison, freezing, and crying, and planning to down a whole bottle of whiskey by himself. It was even happy hour at most bars, in whatever youthful district Iason had landed himself in after asking the taxi driver where’s a place where he can drink as much as he wanted.

Taking his meds and drinking did not go hand-in-hand, but he just didn’t care.

He dropped himself on a rather comfortable barstool, with a back and another buttoned cushion to support his shoulders. “A bottle of your most expensive whiskey,” he demanded.

The barman’s eyebrows rose. “Alright. You here alone?”

“Yes.”

“Waiting for anyone?”

“No.”

“Got it. Are we opening a tab, or will that be everything?”

“That’s all.”

Without another word, the man left and came back with a beautiful bottle of something strong and Iason got started.

When he was way beyond tipsy, he rested his face into his arms, and a man joined him, right next to him. He pretended not to notice.

“I would say if I could buy you a drink, but you seem to have that covered.”

“How observant of you,” Iason mumbled into the counter.

“Your date a no-show?”

“I am just drinking.”

“Seems like you’re sleeping.”

Iason brought his head up and took a deep swig of whiskey, the dizziness just from that movement making him drop his head down once more.

“Alright. I can take a hint.”

The man left.

Then he came back, but this time, Iason couldn’t talk to him. His mind was so dizzy from drinking, he knew that if he needed to puke, he wouldn’t make it to the floor, much less the bathroom. He very much wanted not to ruin everyone’s night by emptying his stomach on the bar, but it was looking like he wouldn’t have much of a choice. How pathetic.

“He said he wasn’t waiting for anyone.” The bartender was talking to the man. About two miles away, he felt someone’s shoulder underneath his arm. Was that guy seriously trying to kidnap him? No way! How bad was his luck? _Was_ his house built on an ancient Native American burial ground? Did his father have a hoard of cursed treasure buried somewhere? Did his mom back-stab Rumpelstiltskin?

“I thought you were off?” Another bartender.

The man answered, “Nah. This rich dumbass asked for The Grand Slam all alone.”

“With that face! Is he a lightweight? He drank a drop.”

“Right? He got roofied in less than an hour. By this guy, I’m sure.”

The wannabe kidnapper protested, “No, I’m a friend. I just showed up late-”

“You’re wearing Coach, and he’s wearing Brioni. Nice try, dude, now get the fuck outta here. I already buzzed the police.”

As soon as the arm left him, Iason went to sleep, awaking in his hotel room with the shrill sound of his phone ringing. The phone said Katze was calling him, and had been calling constantly for the last thirty minutes. Iason snatched it up and croaked, “Katze?”

“Jesus CHRIST, Iason! You want to kill me?” Katze yelled angrily. “Where have you been?”

“I… I drank a lot last night.”

“Oh, fuck, good. Jesus, fuck…”

Iason sat up on his bed, reaching for a menu for room service. “Did something happen?” he asked sleepily.

“Yes,” Katze voiced, gruff and still very, very angry. “The van started moving this morning. It got all the way down to St. Louis, then the signal went dead. We thought that maybe you followed them and got caught or something. Your dad is already pissed you’re gone. If you went missing, I can just bend over and kiss my ass goodbye.”

“Yea. Probably.” The menu laid before him, Iason couldn’t concentrate. “You said St. Louis? At a prison?”

“Doesn’t matter. No fucking way you’re going to risk that. We can try to convince your father to start an investigation but he has made it _fucking_ clear he won’t do a damn thing until you come back. That means come back.”

If he went back, he will no doubt be on the highest floor of a hospital, involuntarily. He didn’t think his father would lie to Katze, or Katze to him, but promises kept doesn’t mean keeping him involved, especially so physically. His mother wouldn’t let him leave her sight for eons.

“Iason? You’re coming back?”

As Iason dropped his hand to the menu, he heard one last, “Iason! Come home!” before he hung up.

As fast as he could, he pulled on some shoes, read a note signed with Gary’s Pub: “Come back soon!” He found the nearest ATM, which was not in the hotel because THAT one was broken, but he had to go back almost all the way to the pub to find a janky-looking thing that probably would steal his information. Wouldn’t matter in a moment.

He pulled as much money as the account allowed from his card. Not even an hour later, he received notice that his accounts were frozen.

An hour after that, he moved to the cheapest motel he could find that didn’t look like he would end up mugged by noon and robbed by nightfall. That was a tough call, since he was almost taken in broad evening light. Still, he thought he made a good choice getting a place near a police station. There were prostitutes up front, and a guard, for some reason, watching everything.

“There’s a, uh, much better place out there by the interstate,” said the concierge- actually, what were they called in cheap ass motels?

“Thank you.”

He followed the same schtick. Although instead of attending a funeral, he went to Gary’s Pub and asked for The Grand Slam, but instead of whiskey, he asked for lemon water. When he wasn’t at the pub or at the motel, he was looking up every single jail and prison and penitentiary and ‘private detention center’ he was able to find on his phone, and working out.

He was biting off more than he could chew, he knew, but that has been his middle name for a long time now.

He fucked around for three months before going south to St. Louis by bus. Economy. His legs hurt so much.

Instead of going to any jail, he went to the safest place downtown, according to residents, tourists, and the local police department. After finding a good pub where he would pretend he was a massive alcoholic, he got ‘a drink’ with the cash in his pocket, a grocery debit card, dressed like he was about to visit a prison, and left in the direction of a private detention center- one that was, coincidentally, co-owned by the owner of the Mars prison in Detroit.

Coincidence. Yea. Right.

Iason counted his blessings that he even realized it, but looking up which people he might be able to bribe was awfully important at this juncture.

After walking about an hour and a half, Iason breathed in the blissfully warm air and flagged a cab down.

A cab came, swerving through heavy traffic into the small parking spot left, and the driver running around to open the door.

Eyes down on his legs, the driver called, “Hello, pretty lady.”

Iason corrected, “I am a man.”

“Oh. I thought you was one of them transvestites!”

What the fuck was wrong with this guy? “Wearing a shirt and jeans?”

“You never know.” He continued holding the door.

The conversation was just too odd. Did he really luck out on the first try?

“How much is the fare?”

“The fare?” The man shrugged. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my hotel.”

“Your hotel?” He looked to the north, like an idiot. “You want to go back to your hotel?”

“Yes…?”

Trying to cover for his slight lapse, the man said quickly, “Okay, right, sure. About fifteen, give or take.”

Iason put his hands on his hips. “It’s great that you already know where I am staying. Makes things so much easier.”

The very bright man nodded with a smile and stepped away from the door. When Iason moved not an inch, he had a brief look of confusion, then shock.

“Well. Fuck.”

He ran a hand over his shaved head before, quicker than Iason could possibly anticipate, reaching out, grabbing him, and throwing him into the car. Well, mostly. If he was shorter, he would have been trapped, but he had rather long legs, and the area just above his ankles hung outside the car. He kicked the door open when it nearly closed and scooted closer out.

“Get in before I break your foot!”

“Then break it, motherfucker!”

Iason braced for an obscene amount of pain, but his would-be kidnapper simply tried to close it, on his ankle. It wasn’t breaking, but it still hurt as if to say, “This is how it feels to ALMOST break your ankle!”

He straightened up, grinding his teeth, and pushed more of his leg out. The bone of his shin scraped against the thin metal of the car door.

“Stop fighting!”

“No!” He shoved his arm into the small space allowed by his ankle, bracing his free foot against the seat of the car and his shoulder into the door.

If someone could see what was happening, that would be swell.

Not a fucking soul walked by, of course. The windows were much too tinted for people speeding through the streets on the other side to look through as well.

In the position he was in, he was going to run out of energy long before the other man did, and that wasn’t even taking into account that the man was probably a lot stronger than him. Hell, he managed to pull a six-foot man off his feet.

He needed another option.

“I know Riki is not here!”

The pressure let up momentarily, and Iason got his foot out and half his chest.

He had to immediately turn his head or risk the bashing into his skull as the man pulled and pushed the door. Still, the door was in his collarbone along with his wrist that had slid down to waist level, out of reflex. It hurt so much, so much.

But he wouldn’t stop fighting until he lost consciousness or died, and not a millisecond sooner.

“Fuck!” The man banged on the window with a closed fist. “Fuck! Just get in!”

“No.” Iason didn’t raise his voice. The man stood there with both hands on the door. They looked one another in the eye.

Iason broke the silence first: “What, were you instructed not to hurt me?”

The man said nothing. Then he rested his forehead onto the glass. Closing his eyes, he answered, “Yea. I don’t get paid squat unless I deliver you safe and sound.”

“Deliver? Like a pizza.”

“Yea. A five hundred k pizza.”

Iason blinked rapidly. “He’s offering you half a million dollars? Is that how much you got for taking Riki?”

“No, he didn’t get me doing that alone. But a hundred k ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at either.”

“So your employer is a he?”

That same silly look.

He banged his head, in regular two-second intervals. “I’ve been doing this for thirty years. But he fucking said you were easy. You’ll fight back, not think before you act, but you’ll be delicate, and look at you, ‘bout to break your damn bones to escape, talking like Black Widow. It was bad enough your li’l Hulk boyfriend popped my shoulder out of place with a kick. He’s like three feet and the tip of his toes just-” He made a popping sound with his lips. “-right on out. Now, I’m… Fuck.”

“Now you’re poor?” Iason asked, relaxing his body, readying it just in case he was just being distracted so the man could regain his strength.

“I’m dead.”

“He’ll kill you for not being successful?”

“You know what I look like. If I’m lucky, the police will get me eventually. If I’m unlucky, your family- including Jupiter- gets me.”

Genuinely curious, Iason asked, “My family is worse than the police? How so?”

“You think your dad or Jupiter will let me walk again knowing I’m doing this?” He pushed the car door, squeezing into his lungs. Iason breathed through his nose. “I’d be lucky to still have all of my limbs. Well, Jupiter will kill me outright.”

“Why?”

“For reasons,” the man answered evasively.

“So now what.”

“I keep hoping nobody walks by and you tire yourself out. Or I could let you go and run back to the hotel, while I drive there and wait for you.”

That would be a smart thing to do, and incredibly unfortunate for Iason. “What makes you think I would go back?” he bluffed.

He did not take the bait. “You brought nothing but a debit card, just in case the cabbie asked for it up front. Now that I am clear-headed, I realize you were waiting for me. Had you planned on the whole hotel bit, or did you make that up on the spot?”

“I planned it,” Iason said proudly.

“What if that didn’t work?”

“I would have said- after sitting in the car with my legs out, mind you- that I didn’t have any cash and would hand over my card and ID. Then say that I just really needed a ride to the jail on 20th street.”

Although he tried to fight it, the man ended up smiling broadly. “That’s easily an hour drive with regular traffic. But you walked around for two hours so that it would hit rush hour. Act first, my ass.” He shook his head, laughing a little. “No cabbie in his right mind would even consider it.”

“Do you think you would have paused?”

“Shit, I fell for the hotel bit, remember? I can guarantee you I can think of very few men who would have kept a straight face, and they ain’t in the delivery business.” A look of confusion passed. “So… What were you planning, waiting for someone to attempt to deliver you?”

Iason answered at once, “I planned to bribe you. But I don’t have half a million dollars, or even a hundred grand. What about you waiting in my hotel room?”

The man shook his head. “Nothing. You would have risked calling your parents, probably lie about coming home or staying safe. Then you’ll have my face plastered across the country and most of Europe. You gain nothing. I gain nothing.”

Iason breathed deeply, hoping the conversation was going the way he wanted it to go.

“How much do you have?”

“The most I can give you is fifty.”

“Fifty! Shit, boy.”

He let go of the car door immediately.

Iason could hardly believe it. Heart thudding painfully in his ears, he stood in front of the man, knowing he could just throw Iason one more time and get his legs in a lot better, now that he knew.

That didn’t happen. The man closed the door behind him.

“You seriously have fifty grand in cash?” The man stretched his shoulders.

“Yes.”

“How about I walk ahead?”

“Of course.”

The walk with the blackcoat was long but uneventful, and the only time Iason walked ahead of him was when he left him at the front desk to get the money, counting it. He then took his phone and set it on record, for insurance. A grin spread on the man’s face when he saw his face reflected in the phone, and so that made Iason feel a bit better as he put the money in precise stacks onto the table used for guests. Still, the man counted the bills and checked them through the sputtering hotel lights.

“Uh oh,” the man murmured.

“What’s wrong? Is it fake?” That would just be luck.

Shaking his head, the man poked his chin to a police officer walking right towards them.

“Oh, I was thinking you people didn’t exist,” Iason said once the officer was in earshot.

“But I am black and I am right in front of you,” the man said, as the police officer narrowed her eyes.

Iason realized his word choice. “No! I meant police people! Not you people- oh, my god, not black people.”

Narrowing her eyes further, she inquired, “Are you in need of a police officer? Or did you lose a bet?”

They both answered, “Lost a bet.”

“And if I were to search you for drugs?”

“You got a warrant?” they both answered once again.

“You know what. I wouldn’t do that too often. Some unsavory people might think you are easy pickings.”

For the last time: “We aren’t.”

“Fine. Fine.” She turned.

“Wait!” Iason called. “Stay for just a moment please.”

He turned to the man, asking, “Where is he?”

An indefinite number of weeks later, Iason stepped into Amarillo, Texas, with enough money to do just what he planned to do in Texas, if things worked out.

He had already called his parents, back in Detroit.

“Iason. You have lost your god damn mind asking for such a thing,” his dad told him, holding Eris’s hand as she continually wiped her eyes.

“Please. You’ve said you have contacts here. Please. I am about to run out of money anyway, and I’ll have to come back.”

Slamming down her free hand on the desk, Eris cried, “Just come back! This is insanity, Iason! I can’t believe you would allow yourself to be fooled by Kyrie! Kyrie of all people! I don’t know what he is planning, but you need to stop falling into whatever trap he is planning for you.”

Iason didn’t want it to come to this. For one, it might not work and then he would be really, really inconvenienced. Not only out of money, but devoid of resources, and alone in every regard. He had little misconception on how successful he would be.

Still, he needed this: “I am not coming home on my own if you don’t do this.”

“Iason… Please… Just come back and we can think of the next steps.” Apollo squeezed the arm of his chair. “Please.”

“I said what I said. Stop all transfers. If and when I run out of money, you can come get me.”

“Where are you checking?”

Iason gave his mother a droll stare, causing her to cover her face in anguish.

Seeing her so much in pain made Iason want to stop, go back and apologize.

The idea of abandoning his quest for Riki made him continue.

In the end, his father whispered, “Fine.”

“Apollo!”

“He’s already been gone for months. I have no reason to believe he would be bluffing now. But Iason.” Iason looked his father in the eye. “Don’t make me get the police after you and make you come home. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Father.”

Eris was already leaving the confines of the camera before Apollo turned off the connection. Iason knew they would be arguing for a long while.

He received a message that transfers had been paused with a lot of string pulling and a certain terrible amount of money. Now, Iason was in Texas, where there weren’t that many hotels even in such a name brand city, not if he wanted to save his money for the taxi trip to the jail he was told had Riki hostage and torturing him by having him fight for his life every day.

Or almost every day, Iason couldn’t tell.

When he had returned to his hotel back in Detroit, there was a flash drive on his pillow. It must have been put there as soon as he left the first time. Iason could imagine the man blackmailing him with what was on the flash drive, and, honestly, that would have had Iason behaving. Fortunately, he had some long thoughts before any actions.

There was absolutely nothing to gain from watching the terabyte and a half of high definition footage with video and sound from one corner of some jail cell. Still, he watched them, watched him over those weeks, and he finished them.

He had no interest in things like boxing or mixed martial arts championships, but watching Riki stirred a bloodlust inside heretofore untapped. Maybe it was because Riki didn’t have any particular style, moving like a boxer one moment, Muay Thai kicking another, and wrestling right after that. He wondered if Riki was able to fight so well because the other inmates weren’t trying to kill him, apparently, but rape him. Every torn shirt or push to the floor sent a wave of nausea through Iason, which didn’t disappear until Riki won.

Then one day, there was a man who had been trained- definitely traditional boxing- and Riki seemed to have a hurt shoulder or hand because he wouldn’t reach out to hit or block. There were many videos after this one, but still Iason feared the worst deep down in his gut.

But the man stopped and rested against the bars in the end. Riki stepped back, and Iason could only see the back of that dark head with crazy hair all over the place. It fell twitching and hitting the wall. Riki needed sleep, but he didn’t until the man was removed from the cell.

Iason didn’t know how he could sleep every night, but then he realized he didn’t know if Riki slept very much at all. He didn’t snore loud enough for the camera to pick up on it, and he stayed still until very late into the night.

The next video showed the man coming back, the fight commencing almost before the door clanged shut. It was the longest fight he had seen, would ever see, and still Riki fought his best all the while.

“This fuckin’ cell.”

An actual conversation!

“No thanks. I’d rather use my strengths for a lover who can handle it.”

Iason had squealed into his pillow, blessedly alone to do so.

After a few more exchanges, Iason couldn’t quite make out what they were doing on the wall, but Riki wiggled free and got the man down, hitting the sink on the way. With him so hurt, Riki stopped early for the first time.

For the first time, he heard Riki’s opponent beg to be knocked unconscious.

In the hotel bed in Texas, Iason reached the last video. He knew just the moment the beginning of summer hit, because the camera changed positions. That’s when he was moved to Texas!

Twelfth to last, and a man walked just inside, looking so much like Riki, Iason would bet a million that they were related and no one would take him up on the offer because there would be no contest.

Riki seemed to recognize him as well, but not well enough.

“I have two options for you.”

And the rest.

Although there was no fighting in this video (yet), Iason never more wanted to completely delete the man responsible from the face of the Earth. It was then he vowed to kill the man and let his family take the heat. He would risk everything but Riki to have that man bleeding out at his feet.

“Okay.”

To the screen, Iason whispered, “They are just pictures, Riki!”

But then he imagined himself in Riki’s position, humoring the fantasy that he wouldn’t have lost long before now, and he knew without a doubt he would be doing the same. He would have done it for the flash drive, easy. He would get fucked raw for that flash drive.

Iason was ready to flash forward to the end and skip this awful scenario, but there was less than a minute left.

Inexplicably, the familiar man apologized to Riki- by name, Iason realized- and tore the photos apart. The last seconds were of the Riki beating the man, who didn’t fight back, though he did try to go back through the door, but someone had shut it. He was chased around the room until the video cut off abruptly.

Whoever saw this had not enjoyed the turn of events.

He must have given up long before Iason arrived.

Iason arrived and slept one night in the hotel and awoke ready to call a taxi, but he received a call from Apollo.

“Iason. They found him. A prison in Louisiana. They have videos of him… Fighting. Self-defense, but he-”

“I already have those videos, Father.” Iason, suddenly remarkably clear-headed, interrupted. “The contact in Detroit whom I spoke about gave me a flash drive full of them.”

Apollo breathed audibly. “If I had seen those videos at the time…”

“Yes. I know.”

That’s why I didn’t say a word about them, Iason said mentally.

“Father. I cannot risk them moving him again.”

The unasked question wavered in the air until Apollo said, “How soon can you get to an airport?”

An hour and a half later, Iason was back at the same port as before, the airplane said rather than the bus side, but he wasn’t in the least worn out. For his parents to have his back finally, for him to have proof outside of hidden messages and enemy-of-his-enemies, to know with certainty Riki’s location, all gave him an energy he realized he had lacked. A guileless, free energy.

He would see Riki soon. In the flesh. Hold him in his arms.

He looked around for the check-in for his flight.

“Richie! I ain’t gonna blow ya damn covah! You tell me where you is, or I swears I’ll lock ya up myself!”

Iason turned to a man off to the side, just inside the doors, and looking back and forth through the glass. He had a huge suitcase and seemed dressed for a real winter, not the Texas winter sun that definitely enjoyed working overtime.

The argument being so weird, Iason thought immediately of the man back in Detroit: “Hello, pretty lady.”

He might as well take the bait. If the man was already this close, Iason hiding wouldn’t do much of a good.

Still, Iason kept his distance while calling out, “Hello.”

The arguing man turned around.

If they were trying to honeypot him, they were quite close to distracting him.

They were the same height, but where Iason was light (-ish, from a constant tan), the man was dark (-ish, from a lackluster sun). Dark, curling hair in a ponytail reminiscent of Guy’s style, he also sported thick eyebrows over bright green eyes. A smile, missing one canine on the left, made his face even brighter, and his squarish, handsome face that much more striking.

“Grey?” the man on his phone called. “What’s up? Why ya stop talkin’?”

“Oh, my bad. Some hot blond dude said hello.”

“Oh, good. Get wit ‘em and go back to Kazara!”

“I ain’t leavin’ wit-out you!”

Kazara sounded familiar to Iason, but just barely, but he didn’t want the man to leave just yet. He looked up the town on his maps app, an invaluable piece of his journey.

Kazara was just outside Amoi.

They were back to arguing back and forth, and Iason started to feel rather sure that if he left, he wouldn’t be bothered.

But there was no way this was a coincidence.

Right?

He should go get on his flight.

“Look, I saw ma cuz! He’s all grown up now like me, but I ain’t leavin’ wit-out ‘im! Ya know how many peeps are mournin’ ‘im and shit! Please, Grey, don’ come get me. I don’ know who’s watchin’.”

“Baby… Baby, baby,” Grey pleaded, hitting the handlebar of his suitcase with each utterance. “You got lucky one o’ ‘im wanted their dick sucked more than they wanted to kill ya.”

“I know!”

“Don’ push ya luck. Please. Or else I’mma push mine.”

“What? So we both die in-uh guttah?”

“At least we togethah.” The man looked back at Iason. His eyes were sad, but determined.

He would find the man, and die with him. In a gutter together.

Iason could see it. It convinced him.

“I shoulda nevah had that GPS installed.”

“That’s the only thing that got me here,” Grey disagreed.

“Exactly,” Richie answered. “I wish you had stayed in Amoi and lookin’ for that rich boy.”

Rich boy.

“Not with you all the way down here, alone.” Grey shrugged. “Don’ e’en know his name.”

“How many blond, blue-eyed guys with long hair in Amoi that go to the same school? You didn’t even look.”

The man frowned, as the man’s true words hit him into silence. He glanced at Iason, crying out, “And, anyway, this blond guy here is all the way in Texas, blue eyes, long ‘air, so there could be a lotta ‘em!”

“That blond guy is still right there? What he want?”

Grey asked, “You need some help, luv?” as if he was already a friend.

He had to be sure.

“Love? What would your boyfriend think to know you are in love with a stranger?” Iason’s taunt just rolled off the tongue

Unfazed, the man said, “Lookie, lookie.” Grey turned to him to take a picture. “I’ll send this to ‘im, and you’ll see. He'll be A-stacks.”

In moments.

“THAT’S HIM! THAT’S THE BLOND GUY! THAT’S HIM!”

Richie on the other side was _screaming_ in excitement!

“HE’S IN THE AIRPORT? IS HE ABOUT TO LEAVE?! RIKI’S RIGHT HERE!”

Grey joined him: “HE IS. I DON’T KNOW WHY HE HERE. WHY YOU HERE?!”

Iason answered in a normal, sane voice, “A prison in Louisiana said that they have Riki.”

“NO FUCKIN’ WAY! I LIT-RALLY JUST GOT OUTTA THA’! UNLESS THE FUCKAS CAN FLY! AND THEY JUST MOVED HIM HERE, WHEN THEY MOVED ME!”

And then.

“WAIT! SO HIS NAME REALLY IS RIKI?”

“Yes...?”

Quietly, Richie said, “Oh… That’s… Sad.” He changed tune at once: “Dun’ come here! Get ya rich folks to get some bodyguards or something over here by these… Shit… The goat and pumpkin farm! It say… Shit, what it say… Milky Way Farms!”

Grey laughed, “I can just give ‘em ya GPS location, dum-dum.”

“Oh, yea!”

“I need a picture of Richie!” Iason cried.

His parents will not take this information well, not without the most persuasive of reasons.

Even with the picture of a banged-up Richie that looked like a banged-up Riki: “Iason. You will go to this hotel and wait for me. Wait. For. Me.”

“I will, Mother.”

“We will handle everything. And, just in case, we will send people to the Louisiana prison as well. But. You. Must. Not. Move!”

“I won’t, Mother.”

“You don’t want to get killed, do you?”

“No, Mother.”

“Then. Stay. There!”

He stayed there as his parents, as far as he knew, took the private jet straight to the hotel. They came with enough guards to take up the floor underneath the suite Iason was stationed at, with Grey.

And they came into the room both rushing to hug him, hugging him so tightly he couldn’t breathe. He let them, he let their exhausted faces rub against his and lips caress his forehead and cheeks. He missed them. He really did.

Grey asked loudly, “You guys dark! He adopted? Oh, yea, my name’s Grey!”

“Yes, we know who you are. Iason told us about you,” Eris said with a polite smile.

“He did? Thanks a bunch!”

Apollo muttered, “He’s a bright as you said, Iason.”

“He called me bright? People nevuh call me that!”

“I wonder why.”

“Me, too!”

Eris laughed. “He’s adorable.”

“People call me _that_.”

“Ah, my. It’s fortunate we came.” Eris stepped back, eyeing Iason and Apollo seriously. “We don’t know how deep Riki’s taker has control over the jail. We have no help from the police or government because of the extralegal circumstances. Not unless we have concrete proof all along the way. Which we don’t.”

“What are we to do, then?” Iason couldn’t bear the thought of having Riki stay in the jail until everything was up to par legally. Not when he was right here.

God.

He was lucky.

So lucky.

Maybe Lady Luck fell asleep or got amnesia that she was supposed to make his life a living hell.

Apollo’s phone rang.

“Why is he calling?”

“Who?” asked Eris.

“My guy here.” Apollo answered the call, putting the volume on speaker. “Yes? Is something wrong?”

“Apollo. The captain of Dimone jail in Amarillo, Texas says Riki is at her jail. I know I just told you that L. A.’s Chat had him.” The deep, accented voice of Apollo’s friend sighed. “But I got to the bottom of it. I put them both on video and guess who showed up, live, with Riki?”

They all stood in quiet shock.

“She- Dimone’s warden- has already released him into protective custody. Also, do you guys perhaps know a man named Richie? He’s a fuckin’ dead-ringer for Riki and says he is his cousin. Popped up out of a nearby barn with a sprained foot and a fracture in his arm and a ‘kink’ in his neck. We have him in custody as well, but he has made it clear that he doesn’t want to see Riki ‘in person’, as he says, and he doesn’t want Riki to know about him ‘yet’, as he says. Your opinion?”

Apollo could only say, “Attend to his wishes. You have my eternal gratitude.”

“Eternal? Jeez, this was the easiest favor I’ve ever done in my life, political and civilian, and perhaps the only political favor I can brag about. Didn’t I just reunite your son with his long lost lover? What could possibly be better than that?”

Iason answered, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”


	3. December Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have found each other, and they realize that they weren't the only ones having a rough go of it.

The room had enough space for his entire cell block, unlike the police station’s small, hardly bigger than a closet witness protection room. It really made him feel protected to be trapped in a windowless room with only a single bed and a door protected by guards. (/s)

“'Are you kidding?! Get him the fuck out of there! Put him in our hotel!'” the guard had relayed to her coworker as the both of them escorted him in a car away from the prison.

Shaking her head, she laughed, “What were we thinking? Sorry, kid!”

Riki felt only a tad bit moved to say something, something like he was an adult, but the doubt lingered if he should play the fool-

“He’s so quiet.”

-because Riki had no clue if this was all an extravagant test. As soon as he got comfortable and settled…

Like now. Windows shining midday light, a bed with actual back support, carpet more comfortable than his damn cot- and someone will come after him and try to fuck him up, and when he _kills_ that motherfucker, he’ll have to go back. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t wait. He just couldn’t wait for everything to go to shit.

The guards would have to keep up the façade, won’t they?

Not thinking one bit, Riki walked past the door into the long hallway. At either end was an elevator, and right across was the other half of the midfloor, a semi-penthouse basically.

The guard- Rhea was on her badge- asked him, “Are you doing okay, son?”

_I’m not your son!_

_She doesn’t mean anything by it._

_Don’t get angry._

“I need to… I need to be able to leave. Take a walk.”

“They’re coming down- the Minks.”

“Sure.” Sure, Riki told himself with all the faith of someone thrice-bitten. “I still need to go, alone.”

Rhea blew a raspberry, making the other guard, Cyril, laugh. “You trying to get me fired? Hell, no, you ain’t going alone. I will come with you.”

“No!” Riki backed away, staring up at the woman. He was out of the room, but he saw no drop in their demeanor. A slight confusion, but that was all.

They stared at each other and Riki wondered if he truly had to start running. If he needed to, that’s what he would do, maybe he’ll go far enough away that they would lose him!

Cyril stepped forward. Riki tensed up.

The man walked around Riki and knocked on the door to the other half of the penthouse.

Before long, Riki heard a familiar voice ask, “Grey?” and someone opened the door, with jet-black eyes looking upwards before snapping downwards in confusion, then utter shock. Not talking to him at all, the man demanded, “Why’dja let ‘im know I was here? I told ya I’on’want him to know ‘bout me yet!”

His pretty face had very much seen better days, as it was swollen in multiple spots and one eye was pretty much shut. His entire arm was wrapped up tight in a cast that pushed upwards on yet another cast keeping his neck straight. When he saw Riki’s eyes look down on it, he grinned and shrugged up his injury.

“You fucked me up real good.”

Riki still felt like fucking him up even better, but the striking familiarity that he had felt before came back full force, but this time with the helpful whisper that this man used to be much, much bigger than him. Now, he was slightly smaller (a man who was smaller than him!).

Riki had plenty questions, but only one came to the fore: “Why did you tear them up?”

Opening the door completely to another tastefully posh room, the man said with worry, “You… Didn’t find some in your bed?” His good eye went wide with sadness, a bright eye with long lashes.

“I did. But why tear the others up in the first place?”

Sighing, the man gestured him inside to sit at the sofa in front of the TV. As Riki sank into the cushions, feeling more comfortable now than he has been in months despite not knowing a lick about the man, the other gingerly laid himself along the length of a recliner, covering himself with a soft blanket.

“I…” He closed his eye. “Name’s Richard, everyone calls me Richie. I’m ya cousin. Well, technically, I’m ya second cuz, and youse my first cousin once removed.”

RIki blinked.

“What?”

“I… I know you gots so many questions, but I can’t… I just can’t go into all o'em right now. I am so tired- and it has absolutely nothin’ wit you kickin’ my ass. Sorry if this depresses the fuck outta ya… Do you still wanna hear it?”

“Hear about the cousin thing? Or the picture thing?”

“Picture, mos def.”

“Then. Sure.”

Richie nodded, settling deeper underneath his blanket.

“Your Grandma, the foster lady? She came ‘round to Kazara, obviously lookin’ for ya, but I didn’t know that ‘til she left town. She went to Auntie and Unc’s house- not ya parents, ya Mama’s parents.”

What? What? What?

Riki understood all the words, but he had the most trouble putting two and two and two and two together. If he was hearing right, he had at least three family members in Kazara, just fifty miles from Amoi.

“That’s what my Ma and Pa said.”

Five.

“’Parently she was seeing if ya grandparents spoke to anyone ‘bout where you was. Ya grandma, the asshole one you don’ know, and my Ma are sistahs, but they ain’t been talkin’, ‘cause Auntie didn’t want to keep ya after Cuz died.”

“My mom,” Riki said, the sparse puzzle pieces falling together.

“Yea. And, don’t you tell ya nice ol’ Grammy, but I think whoever took you was followin’ her, and got me.”

“Oh… And they… Knew about your relationship to me?”

“Fo’ sho’. ‘N fact, it was probably- you know, not the time.”

“Really? Seriously? After all you said? Can it really get any worse?”

Richie chuckled, blinking a bit sleepily. “Oh, yea. Anyways. Was walkin’ to work at the body shop, got the whole chloroform. Not like now, this is just the pain meds.”

“Sorry.”

“Please. You kickin’ my ass got me sent to tha med bay at the prison instead of straight outside. You see, I’on’know if you knew, but anybody who went inside ya cell and fought as hard they could was set free. Immediately. Like. Lit’rally from ya cell to outside. Outside being the doctor’s office. The med bay and office ain’t the same- basically one’s for people who’re gonna go back and the other is for them that are free.

“If I had gone outside, I woulda been killed. ‘Cuz here’s what went down.” Richie yawned for nearly a full minute. “I was in the prison for, jeezums, two weeks, raped nearly every goddamn night.”

“What… I’m sorry… I…don’t....”

Waving away his apology, Richie reassured him, “Nothin’ I ain’t used to. It ain’t my first rodeo, though it’s been a good thirteen years since the last ride- not sex. I got a boyfriend who takes care of me. Anyways. I get taken to the warden’s office and she has this guy in a mask, but I already know who he was. He tha only one who calls me Richard in that way of his…”

A deep frown twisted his features, including some hard lines in his forehead. Riki noticed an ‘X’, a small scar. From there, Riki saw many more scars, small things, small burns. That hadn’t been Riki. That hadn’t been within the last month, or year. Probably decade.

“Bleh. Anyway, this pedo-asshole is all like, ‘You will be meeting a new friend. He has a name sim’lar to yours. Riki. Here are some pictures. You tell him he has two choices.’ Remember them? But what he says afterward is what you gotta pay attention to: ‘No matter what, if he sucks you off or don’t, you rip them up right in front of his face. Then I will let you go.’

“‘Course I says, ‘What if I don’t?’ and he tells me, ‘Then you can spend a few more weeks here before one of my friends- you remember them, don’t you- one of them will torture you to death. Would you like that?’” Richie sighed again, a wriggling, wet one, before he puffed it all out. “Then he’s like, ‘I asked you a question’ and I say, ‘Yes, Sir’. I only call my Grey, Sir. Man, where is he?”

Riki sat up, telling him, “Don’t worry. He should be coming down pretty soon. Anytime now.”

“Yea?”

“Yea. So finish up.”

“Finish up? Oh, yea, the pictures. I was gonna follow directions, fo’ real. But then I sees you, and youse… You bigger and grown but… But exactly the same. Backed into a corner. Do or die. But I’m like, man, you must have been doing well, what with your pretty blond friend and fuckin’, you know, getting tortured by ya… Getting tortured. I was like, am I gonna die for this? Am I?

“Then I did. I tore ‘em up, and damn if I didn’t feel all kinds of good for it, even while you were kickin’ my ass six hundred ways from Sunday through Sunday. If they woulda taken me outside, I’m sure that pedo would have shot me in the leg and thrown me back ‘mong the wolves. But!” Richie grinned, eyes still closed. “They instead take me to the med bay ‘cause they think I’m dyin’. Through my good eye, I see they only got one guy on me, and a window open. Riki, they had a window open! ‘Member that? Me pushin’ you through?”

Riki had no idea what he was talking about, although it did seem really familiar. It felt as if Richard saved his life.

“Anyways, one of the guards comes back and I hear him say, ‘He still a pretty little bitch’ and so I open my eye and reach over, get his zipper down and he’s just waitin’. I sink my nails in his balls and- now I didn’t look- but from the sound he made, I ripped him up good. You already see my legs are fine, yea? I get up and stab some morphine into his neck. They were gonna give it to me but they didn’t know if that pedo wanted me to have any. Then I run, and I get out the window, and I keep runnin’. Somehow, Riki, dude, I got to the gate and I climb over and I’m not shot! I keep running until… Until I get to a barn. Has corn and apples and shit like that. This is Texas and things are still growing, ya know? And there.”

Richie’s breath came out in a bit of shivers; he was really fighting sleep hard now.

“But I couldn’t leave you like that. From what happened thirteen years ago, my parents spent all o’ they savings on getting me a GPS tracker installed. I get it changed out every two years. So Grey- my boyfriend- I call him. I miiiiight have stolen a phone from the house, the house the farm belongs to? It was just there, inside the open window! Kids these days. Anyways. I know Grey’s number by heart and I call my Ma and Pa and I am just camping out to see if they will move you or somethin’. ‘Cause they, the pedo and the guards, they prolly think I’ll get home and tell everyone where you was, right? Then Grey says he is gettin’ a plane and then he says he’s here in Texas and trying to come to my exact location and I just know that if anyone comes they’ll get waylaid- that the right word? Yea, waylaid by the people at tha jail, right?

“Turns out Iason got a fake-ass tip that you were in a jail in Louisiana and he was gettin' a plane there. Just as Grey was arrivin'. How lucky can you be? Like, don’t it get even better ‘cause the warden was changed out and the new one knew who you was? So awesome. Real… Real awesome.” Richie sniffed, head falling to the side, with a pout set into his lips. “Grey…”

Three short knocks woke him right up.

Riki shot up as the door opened, standing in front of Richie, the move coming naturally.

The door opened.

The room went from blurry confusion to extreme clarity.

There he was.

He got brown!

And built!

His hair was to his knees!

Riki ran to him.

“Riki. Oh… Riki!”

Iason had his arms around him, squeezing, picking him up a little.

“Iason!” He didn’t even hear himself scream into Iason’s ear, and Iason heard it through his entire mind.

Someone who had to be Grey squeezed around them and further into the room. “Richie, baby, look at you! You didn’t say you were hurt like this!”

“Who cares!”

“I do!” Richie fell forward into Grey’s arms. “Are you… You tired?”

“Just… Just a bit. Sit down on the chair. I need to sleep a little bit.”

“Okay. Whatever you say. C’mon.”

Grey picked Richie right up and walked to the armchair, wrapping the blanket around them. Richie’s soft snoring could be heard within moments.

The Minks walked quietly past, seeming to flow far away into the kitchen, so Iason and Riki were alone by the door. Iason pulled Riki through to the other side of the hallway, to Riki's original room.

He closed the door behind the two of them and embraced Riki once more, and for some reason neither of them understood, they fell together to the floor in the same tight hold.

When Riki first envisioned being reuniting as they were, he assumed he would feel somewhat traumatized- actually, completely traumatized and unable to walk within ten feet of Iason. These past months his only contact with other people was fighting, and that last day bumping into other inmates, so touching Iason might make him remember only the worst of his experience.

He realized first and foremost that Iason smelled so, so good. Since it was required to shower, it wasn’t as if the other guys at the prisons smelled badly, but they definitely weren’t trying to smell good, forgoing deodorant eighty percent of the time and the ones that did usually put it on right after working out. Not exactly the best time, for the smell was already there, and just smothered in smatterings of blocks of expensive deodorant.

Iason smelled of plenty wonderful smells, something sweet on his skin, fruity in his hair, mint on his breath.

He felt soft, even though he was definitely more toned than before, or had he lost a lot of weight? Smooth, and his gentle hold, his fingers through his tight hair- he needed a haircut, and deep condition. Maybe he’ll get Guy to comb it all out and twist it to how it was before.

Guy.

After a few minutes (it was half an hour), Riki finally separated, asking softly, “Where is everyone else?”

Iason’s blond eyebrows kneaded each other as he, just as softly, asked back, “Everyone else? Mom…and Dad?” He looked at the closed door.

“No, like, Guy and, shit, Raoul. Everyone?”

The soft expression on his beautiful face hardened.

“It’s only me.”

“And your parents?”

“I mean.” Iason separated, holding Riki’s face in his hands- they felt like silk. “Riki. Everyone that I know of except for me, Grandma, and Kyrie, stopped looking for you months ago. Guy fucking buried you in June.”

Riki said… nothing.

Then: “Buried me? I’m right here.”

“They buried an empty casket. That’s what Norris said.”

“You didn’t go?”

“Guy… Didn’t want me there…”

Riki let out a rueful laugh. “ _He_ didn’t want you at _my_ funeral. That’s fucking rich. Now you’re one of three people who helped get me free! Why the fuck was Kyrie helping?!”

Iason brought his hands to Riki’s and brought his eyes down. “To be fair,” he whispered, “it was my and the others fault you were able to be arrested in the first place…And… And although I don’t believe Jupiter is in charge of the whole fighting aspect-”

“How do you know I was fighting? Richie told you?”

Iason sighed.

“I should… Tell you everything from the beginning.”

So Iason told him everything he knew, from the beginning, and Riki went through the starkly painful emotions throughout as Iason talked about how that very dead asshole Brecht Domina offered a job miracle to a bunch of sneaky Blondies, and how their sneakiness got him arrested, and how the sneaky Blondies’ parents came and found out Riki was already out and everyone searched around Amoi and the police stations, didn’t find him, and how that traitorous bastard of an ex-best friend turned on Iason after Iason learned Jupiter was not as involved as either of them would have wanted.

How Kyrie talked to Iason like a secret spy agent with his usually-wasted-on-bullcrap brain power, and helped Iason get that first clue. How those assholes at the Detroit jail gave Iason the runaround- like goddamn, Riki knew he had the worst of it but Iason just couldn’t catch a break!

And he was lucky he didn’t catch hypothermia walking in a shirt and pants in late winter Detroit.

Riki felt his heart leap.

_For me_.

His anger when the security guard said he wasn’t there- then he remembered: “They had my name as Robert, Iason.”

“Ah. Damn it. That’s why!”

Then Iason talked about getting drunk in the bar and almost getting kidnapped!

Of course, Katze told him to come back. Riki couldn’t blame him.

But he did blame the other Blondies for never stepping in to help when it was also their fault. And Iason was alone. And Iason was in danger. If Katze told Iason’s parents, everyone must know.

Iason’s parents wouldn’t help even after hearing Katze out?

Fuck them.

Iason working alone after that. Riki couldn’t fault him for staying in Detroit for so long (and wouldn’t have faulted him for quitting after knowing he was completely alone).

Then Iason tried to slide past one of his own experiences.

He looked uncomfortably to the side as he said, “Then I got a…Um… I got a lead that you were in Texas…. and I asked… And he gave me… He snuck into… Well! Long story short-”

Riki cut in, turning Iason’s face by the chin.

“I don’t want the short version,” he said. “Whatever happened, you still made it here, yea? So. What happened?”

Iason then told him what happened with the ‘taxi driver’, starting with, “I knew they were looking for me- or someone- in St. Louis. Why else drive all the way and THEN break the GPS? It’s not like they would find it accidentally while driving, and in order for them to know that someone knew where they were, someone needed to have gone there already.”

“Smart.”

“So… I walked downtown St. Louis…”

“Not so smart.”

“Trying to attract someone who might have been… You know, waiting for me?”

“Downright stupid.” At Iason’s woefully hurt eyes, Riki amended, “Basically you were trying to bait ‘em out? And you did? What happened? _Exactly_.”

Iason told him _exactly_. (ish)

After going through it all, Riki’s mouth fell slightly open until his head fell to Iason’s shoulder.

“Aaaaaaaaah.”

“Riki?”

His head whipped up as he demanded, “Do you have any idea how bad it would have been if they hadn’t underestimated you?”

“I actually… hadn’t given it much thought…”

“You didn’t tell your parents this, right?”

“Ha! So that they can lock me to a pole and throw away the key? No, I haven’t.” Iason shook his head, pursed his lips. “But what could he have done in broad daylight?”

“Lift your drunk ass from the bar?” Riki answered flatly.

“I just got really upset! It was only once and I… learned my lesson. Plus! That doesn’t really answer my question.”

Riki’s stomach churned as all the awful scenarios passed dizzily before his mind’s eye.

“He could have had a taser. A tranq. Could have killed you?”

“If he wanted to kill me, why meet me in on the street?”

“Alright, you got me there. But still. What if they had more than one person?”

“I would have abandoned the idea altogether.”

It was a bit annoying to know that Iason truly had things mostly covered. Not to mention that anything he could do risk-free did not include looking for Riki. Still, at the very least he shouldn’t have been so alone the entire time.

“So after that, I went home and found a flash drive on my pillow. It had the recordings of you fighting up to that day, including your… fight with Richie.”

“Hmph. Fight.”

“What… Were you two talking about before we came?”

“He was just telling me what he’s been doing these past couple months. Why he ripped up the pictures.”

Iason was quiet a moment before inquiring, “Why did he?”

Riki laid it out just as Richie had told him, which soon lead him to telling Iason how the past two days had been, and before then he (reluctantly) told him how his last fights were the worst, and how the goals of his assailants had changed, causing Iason to squeeze him into his arms again. Encased in his warmth, Riki realized just how much he missed physical affection, not even in a sexual way, just a hold, a safe, warm hold. He didn’t want to leave it.

They went back and forth with the specifics of what happened here and there, like where his hotels were and how he hurt his wrist and how much money he spent (ish) and how much he slept. How much he worked out, how much he thought about finding him or being found.

How much he missed him.

When the questions ran dry, they finally had the idea to actually sit on one of the very comfortable pieces of furniture, outside on the balcony overlooking an average view, the breeze swirling over and around them in comfortable waves.

“What do you want to do now?”

“Hm?” Riki said into Iason’s thin, breathable shirt.

“Do you want to go back to Amoi?”

Riki didn’t expect the question to be phrased like that, but now that he heard it, he felt an ire well up inside his chest.

“Go back to what?” Riki snapped.

“I know.”

That’s why he phrased the question so.

Iason continued, “If I asked my parents, they’ll probably give me a private island for us to live out the rest of our days.” He chuckled a bit.

Riki knew, just as much as Iason did, that neither of them would be satisfied with living the rest of their days anywhere. Not now anyway. So that was the far end of the spectrum, with the other end being going right back to Amoi and pretending that nothing ever happened. Also equally unlikely.

Plus. He did want to keep going to college and doing what he wanted to do in life. There were things he wanted to do to- and with Iason. Iason did, too, right?

“If I said I wanted to go back to Amoi and just… Try to make peace with everyone and continue living my life as before… Would you call me stupid?” Riki whispered.

“Not at all. It’s what I would do.”

“Yea?”

“Yes. I don’t like the thought of dropping everything I worked on account of one incident. Also…” Iason went quiet.

“Also?”

Iason pushed Riki a bit away, looking hard into his eyes with a freezing glare.

“Also, whoever put us through this is in Amoi. Even if _you_ wanted to, I would not give up on finding out who he is. But with his meticulous planning and intensive influence, I doubt he would stay away for long. Is that… Something you want to risk?”

Riki hadn’t even thought of… Justice or revenge. In fact, the foremost annoyance grinding his goddamn gears was the fact that Guy gave up. Of course, that absolutely paled in comparison to whoever was pulling the strings.

God.

“If… If the rest of them had kept looking,” Riki murmured, “you think whoever did this would have tried to hurt them, too? I mean, they tried to hurt you. And they… They hurt Richie like I told you.”

As the ice melted completely from his features, Riki knew Iason, with all the pressure that had been put upon him these past months, simply hadn’t let that thought occur to him. As it did, he fished through his pockets for his phone.

“I don’t know how any of them are doing,” he whispered.

Now, Riki worried as well.

All things considered, he had no idea why HE in particular had to be a plaything. Surely there were so many more people who were much more convenient to steal out of existence than Riki, and there were _definitely_ many more people more convenient than Iason, and then there was whisking Richie away. The puppeteer may not have known about the GPS, but that was still yet another factor to control, another loose end to keep up with. It was as if someone wanted to be to Riki as Jupiter was to Iason.

“Raoul! How… How are you, my friend?”

The phone, loud enough for both of them to hear, put forth Raoul’s voice: “Iason! Iason, we…. We haven’t spoken in months… You really shouldn’t have gotten a new phone! Are you okay? How is… How is the search?”

Iason smiled so widely he had to stretch his mouth open from a crack in the jaw.

“I found him, Raoul. Riki?”

“Hey, Raoul,” Riki spoke close to the speaker.

There wasn’t a sound from the phone.

“KATZE!”

What sounded like the clattering of Raoul’s phone on a hard surface made the connection wobble a bit. His stomping could be heard as well.

A voice could be heard straining to yell, “Don’t run! You’ll pull out your stitches!”

“Never you mind that! Katze! Iason’s found him! He found Riki!”

That same painfully raspy voice spoke again, “Really? Are they on the phone?”

“Yes!”

“And I’m guessing you didn’t really get time to tell them anything about us?”

“What?”

Riki and Iason leaned forward as Raoul and Katze began whispering to each other.

“Oh, my god. I haven’t told them anything. We haven’t spoken since he left.”

Now, Riki and Iason shared a look full of trepidation.

“Y’all all good?” Riki asked. When he didn’t get an answer, Riki tried again, “No one’s dead, right?”

“Right! No one is dead! Just…” Raoul trailed off. “It’s not that much of anything really. It’s just that… Iason, when you hung up on Katze in Detroit, he got worried.”

“My apologies,” Iason said immediately.

A croaky, “Save it,” from Katze and he added, “Because my dumb ass went after you and took Raoul with me to try and convince you.”

“I... Never saw either of you there.”

“Yea. You see, what had happened was that we both took a flight to St. Louis a couple of days later.”

“Oh, no, I stayed in Detroit for weeks!”

As Raoul laughed, Katze said, “Smarter than either of us. We got there okay. Got a ho-”

Katze began to cough up a lung.

“Let me,” Raoul whispered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Stop. Before you… What is that you say… Psyche me out?”

“Alright, but don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Says the man choking on air.”

At this, Riki leaned over into Iason, whispering, “A bit of tenth grade science over here.”

Iason said just as quietly, “Tenth grade science? I took Chemis- aaaaah. You feel it as well?”

“So, we got a hotel,” Raoul interrupted them, unknowingly. “Towards the end of the day, while Katze was, um, he was showering. It’s not like I had been watching! I just heard the water, that’s how I know, he was, doing… That.”

Another look between Riki and Iason made them smile, fortunate that Raoul wasn’t there to see and freeze up completely.

“I get thirsty and I didn’t want to bother Katze and I don’t… I don’t like ordering room service, so I go downstairs to the little store, get a few drinks and come back… I come back upstairs.” They could hear Raoul breathing.

Katze said softly, “This can wait.”

“They already heard you talking about my stitches. I can do it.”

“Alright.” A pause.

“Don’t kiss me! They’ll see!”

“…On the phone?”

“Please ignore that, Iason, Riki.”

“Sure,” they both lied.

“Thank you.” Poor Raoul. “I entered the staircase and there was a man. I really didn’t pay him any mind and so when I went to my floor and used the hotel card to open the door… And he… The man behind me, he went through as I had… I had let the door open for him.”

Riki could guess-

“He attacked me with a stun gun.”

Okay. A little worse than Riki had guessed.

“I guess he didn’t trust himself to do it well enough in my neck since I was taller than him- at least, that is what Katze has told me- but he did it into my collarbone over my heart. In any case, I didn’t fall unconscious, but my head hit the guardrail and knocked me out just for a while.”

“Are you okay?!” Iason demanded.

“My word, Iason, I hadn’t even gotten to the part where I needed stitches.”

***Before, During, and After The Part***

Raoul has been kidnapped and ransomed off. He had been used for his money. He had been on the super protective end of both of his parents, and had seen his parents fall to the wayside for Jupiter. Just like the rest, he had been lonely and reaching for love in the wrong places and, most heinous of all, within Jupiter herself.

Jupiter made it clear that he was the ‘least personable’ of all the Blondies. She could slide, so easily, an off-remark of how boring he was, how tepid, how worrying, how cowardly. Still, he was a child, and most of the adults always intimated her criticisms to a lesser degree, and his Blondie peers had even less subtlety. He was the ‘scaredy-cat’, the ‘big baby’, the ‘complainer’. Although, to Raoul, he just had sufficient reasons not to do things, more often than he found reason to do them. He didn’t seem ‘afraid’ of anything. Still, he tried to do his best, ‘be brave’ in the face of unattractive options, for his parents, for his friends, for Jupiter.

Then around the age of eight, summer, when he was the second person to catch chicken pox (Iason was the first, of course), his parents were much too busy to care for him. Unlike Iason, Jupiter didn’t visit him to make sure he was alright, and when his parents did have the time that week, they spent it with Jupiter and the rest of their healthy community. He was given a temp nanny to attend to his needs.

Apparently, his eight-year-old brain had told him, he didn’t matter. Nothing he had ever done mattered. Everyone will love Jupiter more than him, and Jupiter seemed only to really like Iason.

So, he decided then and there that the rest of them didn’t matter either. He took his medicine, drank his fluids, and played Solitaire. Cried only once.

When he was a day away from full recovery, something he didn’t think would ever happen, happened in the oddest way possible.

His window in his room overlooked an apple tree that was planted when his grandfather first bought the house.

There was a ruckus of noise from the apple tree as if a very determined, very clumsy cat was climbing upwards. His curiosity was peaked. What kind of cat would make the tree move so? He went to the tree, opened his window.

There was Iason.

Climbing the tree.

Alone.

From what he could see, there was not another soul in sight.

Raoul had simply stood there in shock, standing there until Iason managed to get eye level with the windowsill and see him.

“Raoul! Daddy told me!” Iason said breathlessly. “Daddy told me you got the pox! This morning!”

Finally, he was on the branch that reached towards Raoul’s window. Still, even with its length, it would take a mighty big jump from a seven-year-old to get inside, and Iason looked ready to run!

Raoul spread his arms just as Iason leaped. His feet landed right on the edge, and Raoul hurriedly grabbed his legs, pulled, and made them both tumble to the carpet.

Raoul scrambled away.

“Sorry!”

“Why?” Iason asked, shaking leaves out of his hair.

Iason looked so genuinely confused it flabbergasted Raoul.

“I might give you chicken pox again.”

“Ha!” Iason cried, hands on his hips. “No one told you, huh? You can only get it once!”

Raoul doubted the veracity of that statement.

“And even if I get it again, who cares! It wasn’t that bad the first time around, anyway.”

He doubted that none at all.

Iason grabbed Raoul’s dimly-red-spotted hands. “I can’t believe no one told me you had it, though! And when I asked Jupiter to see you, she said we had better things to do! Can you believe it?”

Raoul definitely could, and with a little bitterness he said, “Jupiter doesn’t like me.”

“Yea. That’s because you don’t fall for her mean tricks.”

Mean? Did Iason say that Jupiter was mean? Maybe he was hallucinating? He did think he had a dog the first feverish day, but both his parents were allergic so that just couldn’t possibly have been true.

“Too bad you’re my best friend! No one’s gonna stop me from seeing how you are. You must have been so alone! Why didn’t you call or something! I’ve been asking my parents about you all week, and finally Daddy told me, all secret, that you had the pox!”

Best friend? “Maybe they were afraid you’d climb a tree and nearly break your neck?” Best friend?!

Iason laughed, pushing him. “You meanie! When I came all the way for you like this!”

“Best friend?” Raoul said out of nowhere.

“Jupiter said you didn’t notice that you were my best friend! It’s alright, though. C’mon, you should be resting in bed.” Iason pulled him to the bed, stuffing him awkwardly underneath the blanket. “There you go.”

“Am I really your best friend? Isn’t that someone you should like the best?”

“I do like you the best,” Iason replied nonchalantly, looking over his game of Solitaire. “Unlike Jupiter, when you tell me not to do something, you have good reasons and no ulterior motives. You never do anything for attention- like yours truly here- nor do you act jealous all the time like stupid Gilbert.”

“His dad neglects him,” Raoul murmured.

“Not my fault. He doesn’t have to always have some mean comment to say whenever I say something. Another thing I like about you is that you ignore Gilbert.”

“He’s not worth arguing with, though, Iason.”

“I know that! But he’s so… So damn annoying!”

Raoul gasped, looking at the door just in case the nanny ran in to give Iason a long lecture.

“And see? You’re not a tattle-tell like the others either. The closest persons I like are Leon and Ruphias. And Hubie! But Jupiter treats them so mean whenever I hang out with them!”

“Do you… Not like Jupiter?”

“I like… her because she likes me.”

“I do not understand.”

Iason smiled prettily; no one disagreed with Jupiter that it was his ‘nice’ smile. “Like. It’s kind of like someone likes a dog. She likes me, and I feel, I don’t know, guilty if I don’t like her back. Do you know what I mean?”

Raoul nodded. “A bit better, yes.”

“But Jupiter is not a good person. She’s mean in a lot of ways. I can’t really think of her as nice in any way except to me.”

Thinking of it that way, Raoul agreed, but it was so odd to hear it from Iason, who seemed to think the world of Jupiter. It was even more of a surprise that he didn’t demand more from her. From the way he was treated, it was well within predictions for him to be spoiled rotten and want more and more from everyone. The slightest bit of attention upon the others had them in a tizzy.

Raoul… admired Iason for keeping his head straight. Raoul didn’t think he could.

“Am I a good person?” Raoul asked, sitting up a little.

Iason looked at him as if he was an absolute idiot. “You’re always trying to get people from doing dangerous things.”

“That’s because… things are dangerous. Why would I want anyone in danger?”

“Why do you care?”

“What?”

Iason sighed long and hard. “You know you don’t _need_ to care about people in danger, right?”

“Oh.” Roaul blinked. “I don’t like… People getting hurt.”

“And I watched Jupiter keep buying me ice cream when Marcus pinched his finger on that teeter-totter. You remember that?”

“Yes. You put… Your ice-cream on his injury.”

“While _you_ actually asked the ice-cream man for _sterile_ ice!”

“Jupiter just…”

“Watched. It was creepy.”

“I don’t think… I will care about her anymore. Is that alright?”

“One of us has to. Hey!” Iason’s blue eyes were the whole of Raoul’s vision. “Talk to Daddy. He told me that he hates Jupiter with all his soul.”

Mouth dropping open, Raoul whispered, “He did?”

“Yea. So, if he looks lonely, can you talk to Daddy every now and again? Tell him all the things about me that I keep secret.”

“You… want that?”

“Yea! Just be you. Which is everything the opposite of me.”

“The opposite of you is Jupiter.”

“Oh.” Iason’s face brightened so much the sun seemed to dim. “Thank you. So much. See! You’re… You’re the best!” 

“You’re a fucking idiot!”

Raoul heard those words from far away, but he knew he was just waking up, with his head split and bleeding at the right temple. Whoever yelling was just above him, and Iason on his bed and cementing their friendship for eons to come was, god, more than a decade ago.

A concussion was in the works. Lying down, the room was reeling.

“What? I just got him with the stun gun!”

“Look at his head! He can’t have ANY injuries. We get NOTHING.”

“He or she or whoever the fuck can’t just send us away with nothin’.”

“We’re gonna get killed! Or roped into some other project! This was the riskiest thing we ever fuckin’ done and could have had us set!”

The other man scoffed. “We still have the ginger.”

“Yea, well, it’s not like we can run away. This time, let me do the work. Fucking idiot.” Raoul could hear the door opening.

“Stop calling me an idiot.” He heard the door close.

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! HE HAS THE KEY!”

“It’s the hallway- Oh. You need it for _both_ sides?”

“Oh, on Mama’s life, I would end you if I could. Just. Stay here and make sure he doesn’t move.”

“How?”

“Just watch him through the window!”

Finally, they quieted down, and Raoul was there, on the landing, going crazy from the blood dripping into his mouth and down his chin.

For some reason, he could only think of how Iason might have been struck like this. Or Riki.

Katze.

He needed to help Katze, or else Katze will get hurt and that won’t be good. It just… Raoul didn’t like it and he needed it not to happen. What could he do? Once he got up… The man would try to get to him… No, he couldn’t. The door was locked.

In the extreme quiet, he heard, “Room service,” from somewhere down the hall, probably in front of their shared hotel room door.

Katze wouldn’t fall for that.

“Wha…”

The sounds of running feet and then the other man was back, saying, “I knew he wouldn’t fall for that. Did he move?”

“No… What are we going to do now?”

“I got another idea. You stay here, and when he wakes up, say you already have Katze, so when he gets up and unlocks the door, you can taser him again, and then we’ll show Katze him. You get it?”

“Yea, I got it.”

Then they separated once more.

Raoul went through his very few options. He could get up and pretend to fall for it, but then he’ll get stunned (definitely not a taser) and he doubted very much he’ll wake up anytime soon. He could get up and go downstairs, but he had no idea how many other people there might be, waiting for the next step in the plan.

Or.

Raoul stood up, and the man went straight into the spiel: “Hey, don’t you move. We have-”

“Yes, yes, I heard you. I’ll open the door. No need to stun me either.”

This would be the riskiest thing he’s ever done in his life. Nothing in his life was even close to comparable. He couldn’t think of his next steps either, just that he needed to be as close to Katze as possible, as soon as possible. Then what? Then? Then? A shower?

“Why is he up?!” the man keeping watch by the hotel door yelled.

“He just volunteered. If I knew that he would be all amiable and shit, I would have never stunned him.”

The smarter of the two looked none too convinced, taking out, as smoothly as any common solider, a gun of average size.

“Call him out,” the man ordered Raoul, gun pointed at his abdomen. That isn’t an instant kill…

“He has two guns,” Raoul informed him. “How do you want to do this?”

The man gave him a onceover, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of his brutal honesty. “Tell him to come out with his hands up.”

“Katze? Come out with your hands up.” Raoul knew what he could do. “There are two men out here. One has a gun and the man behind me has a taser. Just come out hands first, please.” In a whisper, he addressed the man with the gun, “Should I just open the door with my card?”

He knew the man would say no.

“No, don’t do that. I gotta know where his hands are the whole time.”

“I understand.”

“You ready, idiot?”

“Don’t call me that!”

“I am also ready,” Raoul said, crossing his arms.

“You think he’s gonna fight?”

“I do not know. I would not doubt it.”

Just as he said that, Katze opened the door a crack, pushing both hands out. Both hands were free of any weapons. The rest of Katze followed, wet and…

And naked.

Stupidly, both men backed away to give them space!

Katze took one large step forward. Somehow, Raoul saw the movement soon enough to step back, seeing the damned stun gun in his peripheral vision.

Oh, god, what was he thinking?!

“Just hold his hands!”

Katze.

Said.

That.

Hands.

His mind could only concentrate on hands, one with stun gun, and one was in his own hand and then the other and he was fighting.

_POP!_

Was that the sound of a gun? Without mufflers they sounded even quieter. Nothing like on TV.

“Fuck! C’mon! Let go!” The man was stronger than him and was pulling him further and further away. Raoul hung onto the stunner with all ten fingers, encapsulated it and hoping against hope neither of them pressed the button. He couldn’t feel anything, not even his heartbeat when usually that would be the only thing he could sense.

_POP! POP!_

More? Was Katze hurt? Was the man hurt? Were they-

_CLICK!_

“AAAAAGH!” The man shook for seconds and then fell.

How long would he be out? Should Raoul kick him? Where should he kick him?

The man made a hiccuping sound, eyes widening.

“Ha-ack!” He grabbed his chest.

He was… Having a heart attack?

“Kaa…Fu-Fuuuu…” His eyes closed, with his hand still clutched.

The seconds passed, and Raoul became sure he wouldn’t move, so he turned, registering the fierce thumping behind him.

The man was choking Katze.

The gun, off to the side, had its bullet holes in the wall, and two in the carpet.

Raoul had the stun gun.

Just…

Despite having the complete upper-hand, the element of surprise, Raoul flinched in the attack, too scared to have the shock go through the man’s neck and probably give one more person a heart attack. It landed on his shoulder.

“Fuuuck!” By reflex, the man reached over his shoulder to grab the stun gun, but Raoul was fast enough to back away but not fast enough.

_Faster than he could possibly anticipate_ , the man leaped forward to grab again, turning and hopping up in one fell swoop.

“Kev? Oh, my god, you fuckin’ killed him! You killed my brother!”

Oh, so people truly said stuff like that as if they weren’t doing bad things in the first place.

Kev’s brother flipped out a rather large knife.

Raoul had the stun gun.

Katze wasn’t moving.

Just as Raoul looked at Katze’s naked body- live body, a live body- the brother swiped at his arm. Raoul felt the blade slice through his forearm, but it didn’t feel like anything, and then another, his hand, the other hand with the stun gun. He kept backing away, at an angle, until he hit a wall.

The man yelled, “Fuckin’ gotcha.”

He reached forward and got Raoul in his abdomen.

He felt that. He felt every inch of that.

He didn’t pass out, so that meant that he didn’t have a damaged aorta, and the pain didn’t even make him sway on his feet, so probably no damaged organs, and then, and then, and then the man had trouble pulling-

The blood covering the knife made the weapon slip from his grasp. Raoul’s own muscles twitched the knife up and down- he’ll puke, he’ll puke, he’ll puke.

Katze still didn’t move.

Focus.

Raoul kicked- the _knife_ \- the man backwards, and the man simply walked back.

“Cute.”

After closing the distance between them, as Raoul had no strength whatsoever, the man was nearly chest-to-chest to him. Did he not know…

“Damn, I could see why he wants to collect all of you. How are all of you so damn cute?” His stomach pushed against the knife.

He didn’t know!

“He may not want you, but someone will. A lot of people will. Shit, your parents would-”

Raoul stabbed him in the neck with the stun gun. All he did was put one hand up to gently push up into the man’s chest, and the other hand quickly flew past into the open connection between jaw and throat.

He voiced no sound, simply snorted harshly and then fell over.

Raoul didn’t even check to see if he would move. He kept the stun gun in one hand, then picked up the much heavier pistol from the floor, putting both weapons in one hand, triggers in the palm.

By the heavens above, Raoul could clearly hear Katze’s breathing. He could cry.

He did cry, just as he started to call the police, and just like in the movies, as he was trying to relay important information to a calm dispatcher, he wheezed and hiccuped and had to be told to relax and that everything would be fine.

“Are you hurt?”

“My friend! He’s breathing but the other… the other… The other one I stunted-” Stunned, stunned was what he meant. “Was choking him for so long, I don’t know if his…”

“Sir, are _you_ hurt?”

“Yes! A knife sliced… My arms, it’s in my stomach, should I remove it? It doesn’t hurt that bad.” Why was he still talking? He’ll overwhelm the woman! “I’m sorry. So sorry…”

“Can you stay on the phone, Sir? Do you know how to do CPR in case your friend stops breathing?”

“Yes! I’ll do that.”

“No! Sir, please, just stay near and only do CPR in case of emergency. Keep your energy, keep that knife as still as possible.”

“Alright. I understand. I understand.”

“Stay on the phone.”

Raoul did as he was told, taking his phone to sit near Katze’s wheezing form, trying to stay awake.

He awoke when the paramedics arrived, hearing one woman say, “Weapons down. He’s got the phone. Stay alive. How are those two?”

A deep voice answered her, “Both breathing. We have to get this one in better shape, though. “

“No. Our caller’s here, help this man first.” Kneeling before him, the lead deputy asked, “Sir? We are going to take both of you to the hospital. Anyone you want us to call? Any hospital you want to go to?”

Raoul tried to answer, and then he went unconscious again, waking up many hours later in a comfortable bed leaned a bit forward. The room, spacious and wide, had double-doors overlooking a lobby, where he could make out his parents. It may not have been hours then. It may have been all night (and morning).

Katze.

Was in a seat next to him, neck wrapped up tight, looking at his phone. His shining almost-amber eyes met his. From the side of him he got a board, a whiteboard, letting a marker squeak across the surface.

_How are you?_

“I’m… fine… What about you? Shouldn’t you be in a hospital bed?”

_Squeaksqueaksqueak_

_I got strangled, but not long enough for anything too bad. Won’t be able to make it to any karaoke parties._

“I don’t think… I’ve heard you sing? Not for lack of the others trying, though.”

_I have the second-best voice, according to everyone._

“I suppose Riki would be the first.” Raoul’s lips wavered. “If we got hit like this, then how are Riki and Iason? If there’s no sight or sound of them, have they been hurt…”

Katze started writing. He seemed so laidback, seemingly unconcerned with almost being taken, or shot, or dying. Why did he bring Raoul? Sure, Raoul doubted Iason would listen to Katze in person if he wasn’t interested in following orders over the phone, but could Raoul have really done any better? Granted, the main reason he even came was because he felt a lot less anxious about where Iason was if he was there beside him. No matter where he would have been, Raoul would have been right beside him.

Finished writing, Katze turned the board towards him.

_The man choking me stopped once I became unconscious, and they prioritized not hurting both of us- in the beginning anyway. Don’t worry about either of them. That one guy ‘did’ have a heart attack, but it was weak, probably from drugs. He’s young, tho, and he’ll be healthy enough to go to jail._

“My parents are here… I don’t think they’ll let us leave.”

After a few moments, Katze shared his thoughts.

_They have cut you off from everything. From what I heard, they aren’t even letting you ride a subway without a guard, much less a car. They aren’t letting me leave either, just in case, they said. So, we are going to get real close until they trust either of us not to go off and get strangled and/or stabbed and/or sliced and/or kidnapped, et cetera, et cetera._

Raoul sniffed, eyes blinking away tears.

“Do… Do you play poker?”

_Yea. I cheat tho._

“Well. I count cards. We’ll see which one wins out.” 

_We should start with strip poker._

“Excuse me?”

_You saw me naked. I feel a little vulnerable. Gotta get rid of that feeling._

Holding up the sign, Katze had a half-grin, for the other side didn’t get far on his scarred side. He still looked very handsome.

“Oh! You can’t expect… Me… To…” He didn’t lose consciousness; he was just too embarrassed to continue talking. He had psyched himself out already.


	4. New Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some have had it much better than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You see those WARNINGS? Please heed them. There is no fluffy emotional aftercare as I usually do (that would be the first chapter of Melt if you would like to wait) . 
> 
> I have always liked horror stories and elements so it wasn't hard to write. Trying to differentiate between thirteen people, with about half of them being mostly unknown but for their names was a chaaaaaaallenge. It all worked out in the end, though! I hope you enjoy.
> 
> *** are different videos.

There wasn’t much that could scare Katze. Sure, he worried about the safety of his friends, the health of Grandma Langeais, whether or not doing that homework _really_ needed to be done. None of that compared to working for the cartel.

Before running away from the foster house, he always thought that if he didn’t like crime, he’ll just leave. If things went well, then he was set for money and for entertainment. He got in, and he realized he should have just super-glued himself to his captain, what he called the man in charge of his unit and responsible for recruiting. His captain was the ‘Katze’ of _his_ generation, four years older, but he had never come back except for Katze, to tell him how to get out of this life of never being adopted.

“Face it. You’re fourteen and you’ve been here all your life. It’s not going to happen. If you don’t like it, you can just come back, you know?”

The reality was the cartel didn’t let him do shit until he’d done enough that he needed them to keep himself out of jail. Not only that, at that point, he’d seen enough that if he tried to leave, they would have been hard-pressed to believe that he wouldn’t rat them out to rival gangs or to the authorities.

It was the same for every young, dumb idiot with no money, no family, no support.

It was a mix of fortune and misfortune that an asshole who was jealous of his relationship with the captain sold him out to some man that wanted him as a pet with futuristic instructions: he could not be hurt, no payment for so much as a scratch.

Then he was thrown into a cage with the captain, and a woman who Katze knew as the captain to his captain, and then another woman who Katze could only assume was just the same down the line.

Four generations of young, dumb idiots with no money, no family, no support. None of them were anything special despite the oldest being in the cartel for little over a decade. This was his future? He might as well have stayed at the orphanage.

There was one person, dressed in what looked to be riot gear and a jet-black motorcycle helmet, standing outside the cage.

“When there is one person left.” They rattled the keys. Then they shook their gun, what looked to Katze like a very black AK-47 (it was a custom-made AR-15). “Or I can take volunteers.”

Katze was seventeen, almost eighteen. Then his captain was 22, then the ladies 26 and 32. He would fight as much as possible, but he had no hopes of winning against his own captain.

But the women just looked at each other. Did they know something that he didn’t?

The eldest whispered, “I volunteer. I brought Mattie here, and Mattie brought Clem, and who’s this?”

“I’m Katze.”

“Right. How old are you? How long you been here?”

“Seventeen, almost eighteen. Been here almost four years.”

“Yea… Of course. Of course. I’m… I’m volunteering. This can’t all be for nothing. I refuse.” 

The guard shrugged, ordering, “Then kneel.”

The captain’s captain didn’t even say anything, just fell to her knees to join the other woman. They held hands.

His captain came up to him, hands at his sides, but Katze knew he could just try to fight him anyway.

Katze received a _hug_ , a whisper in his ear, “Put the butt into your shoulder. It has a hell of a kick.” Then his captain fell to his knees, took the final free hand of his captain. They kneeled still and quiet even as their captor unlocked the cage, then pushed the assault rifle into Katze’s hands.

“You gotta do it. Then you can leave.”

“Go home, little man,” his captain’s captain advised, her voice soft and sultry as always.

It wasn’t the first time Katze killed anyone, but his marks were usually far away and shooting back, not sitting on the floor, waiting patiently.

No, there was an exception. When he first got there, before he got into anything big, he got caught by an opposing gang, and he was pretty enough to be sent to the big wig.

They never checked him for weapons, like his switchblade, and no wonder. The guy in charge had the knife out of his hands and slowly slicing his face apart in minutes, up and down the same area like slicing thin strips of pasta. Then the cartel attacked (not to save Katze, per se), as they now knew where the base of their rivals was located. With the man distracted, Katze had used that opportunity to use all his strength holding the man’s arms to his body until his fellow members came and gunned him down, right there in front of him. Everything came out of him, and it was one hell of a smell before Katze passed out.

The gun had a hell of a kick.

He was blind-folded and handcuffed and swung onto the back of a van, instructed not to move until he heard a loud honk of a car. When he heard it, he tore off his blindfold and finding the key to the handcuffs on the ground and noticing he was at the hideout, right in front. All he had to do was go upstairs and get onto his mattress and wait to do rounds the next day.

But he turned around and walked the ten miles back to the orphanage.

Grandma welcomed him back with open arms. The tiny brats that always wanted to play had all grown up, and their stupid bickering had become friendly banter. After making it clear no one had to treat him like an invalid just because of an ugly scar on his face, he was accepted into the fold as if he never left. He worked on his GED until he aged out, passing the test with flying colors. Riki told him about a scholarship for people like him and, laughing at the thought of college, Katze humored him.

He got enough money to go to Tanagura.

It was a miracle, and both Grandma and Riki said it was only because he worked hard.

At least he did have that going for him. He could work hard when he needed to, and he will make sure no one would harm his family.

At least, that was the plan until Riki got stolen.

It was such a bumbling fucking mess; the stupidity of nearly everyone shocked Katze, but at least he was only in a position to be shocked instead of aggrieved. The fact that mostly everyone jumped at Jupiter and stayed on her even though the scent of her M.O. was nowhere to be found drove him crazy, and it was the reason he helped Iason, and then tried to save him.

After months of house arrest with Raoul, to get that call from Iason and Riki nearly put him back in the hospital, and Raoul cried into his arms for hours. Sure, he cried a few hundred tears himself, nothing much at all, and then he got another call from Grandma saying that Iason and Riki had called and more tears were falling. His eyes were going to fall out.

But God! All the clues pointed towards Riki being trapped in a jail somewhere, not assassinated by Jupiter. Did no one actually know Jupiter? Were they just too close to her to see where her influence ended and where some unknown figure began?

An unknown figure that obviously wanted to- what was it Raoul said the Kev brother said- collecting them? Obviously, that covered the Blondies, but did that really cover both Riki and his close friends? Jesus, if that list covered _him_ , four years their senior and having disappeared about as long, then that means it covered Guy, at the very least.

“Katze?”

Why did he let himself fall into this pattern? There was nothing he could do at the moment, if ever.

He turned around to Raoul. He had recently exited the bathroom, having changed clothes there.

They have only kissed, and it was pretty English, and every so often Katze did plant one on Raoul’s cheek. Every time Raoul would say so very shyly, “You kissed me.”

Just as he did then, freshly showered, the heat and the woodsy smell that Katze could drown in, but the last time he popped a boner in Raoul’s presence because of that woodsy smell, Raoul all but ran all the way into his mother’s room. That action got Katze all but grounded, with Raoul’s dad -Wolfgang Amadeus Am- glaring at him through his sleek glasses whenever they met. While Wolfgang kept a lookout, his wife Lovella convinced Raoul to join the real world, and she would often flow from a room with her rambunctious curls about her.

“My son is ready to join you in the living room.”

So many times, Katze had scared him away, and so many times, Raoul had psyched himself out to the point of doing just the same. Katze didn’t want him for only one thing though, and as Raoul steadily understood that, the less time he went away.

They spent enough time with each other that Katze knew what kind of food Lovella cooked for her son (grilled cheese sandwiches with American cheese and garlic bread) and what kind of activities Wolfgang and Raoul got up to (puzzles, a thousand pieces they could knock out in an afternoon). They were all intensely private, intensely quiet people, slow on affection and conversation. Silently, they seemed to understand each other’s needs.

He seemed to throw a wrench in their rhythm, being there, but an overheard conversation between two of the maids (real maids!!! With fishnet stockings!!! Silk leggings!!!) proved that they were much more scared of something happening to him outside their watch than him bothering their regular home life. Absolutely terrified was a more apt phrase for it. 

Even with Iason returning with Riki, they were anxious for the two of them to leave the house, go all the way to Eos Street in Amoi, even if they were coming along.

Katze phone rang just then.

Raoul whispered at the screen, “Kirie? This is bad news.”

Feeling the exact same, Katze answered anyway, “Kirie?”

“Where are you? You with any Blondie parents or Gram?”

“Why?”

“I have a flash drive with, god, shit to show everyone except- just get to the Eos house and make sure Gram and the parents aren’t inside to see.”

“Wh… Why?”

“Because this fucker has Mimea and I’m a hundred percent certain if anything happens to her, he’ll be able to pin it on me.”

Katze rolled his eyes. “Yea, we gotta make sure you’re safe and sound.”

“Look, fuck you. I thought I was set, but instead I’m like you with a fucking record, isn’t that great? I’m gonna be doin’ this fo’ life.”

“Poor you.”

“Just… follow instructions!” Kirie hung up.

“A flash drive?” Raoul asked.

It was the same when they arrived finally at the Eos house.

“How long will this be? Why can’t we go in? What is this?” Lovella demanded, doing her best to continue up the driveway.

“Please, Mother. Just. I don’t know how long, but it is so important. You know I wouldn’t lie about the importance. I can’t tell you.”

That earnestness kept his parents at bay.

“Please tell the other parents.”

When they both went inside, they relayed the info to the parents that were already there, until only those allowed to see the flash drive remained.

“A flash drive?” Guy asked the familiar question.

Katze tried to answer him, but he couldn’t get over the fact that Guy’s hair was barely a quarter of an inch long. He’s never seen Guy’s hair that short. Hell, his own hair hasn’t been that short since he first joined the cartel. Guy was even wearing glasses- he usually wore contacts- and he looked like he had been working the farm all his damn life, he was so dark and beefed up.

“Yea,” was all Katze could say.

Looking around, he saw only Iason and Riki were missing. Even Kirie was there.

Kirie seemed tired, but his hair was still exquisitely permed to a cloudy fluff, and he wore a jacket so fancy, Katze could smell the leather from where he leaned against the arm of the chair Raoul sat in. His eyes made rounds across the living room space.

Luke was a terrifying stick. It had to be drugs, and since he still had a nice set of teeth, it had to have been crack or cocaine, maybe heroin, but Katze couldn’t see his arms. Norris was there- but not Maxie. Kirie made sure to make that clear that Maxie was not on the VIP list. Norris stood near the window, biting his fingernails. He obviously wanted nothing more than to be near his boyfriend, that was nothing new, but Katze watched Norris move about the windows to make sure he had eyes on Maxie the whole time.

Oh.

This was odd.

As if something happened to him!

Someone touched his hand!

Katze looked down to see it was only Raoul. He stood, turned around and whispered into Katze’s ear, “I think something has happened…”

“To whom?”

“To everyone. We’ve been shut off from everyone… I don’t think we are the only ones that have been hurt. If Mimea is missing-”

“Don’t. Not yet,” Katze reassured him, rubbing his arm.

Anything and everything made Raoul blush!

Red-faced, Raoul continued, “I just assumed if no one left campus, they would have been safe, but that makes no damn sense at all! Anyone left behind would have been right here with this fucking… maniac! Oh, god, Mimea. Where is she? Is everyone accounted for?”

“Sh-sh-sh. We got this. One step at a time.” Katze did do another quick count, though. “Everyone’s here, except for Riki and Iason.”

In the meantime, Kirie ignored everyone and got the TV hooked up to his computer with the flash drive data already completely uploaded. From what Katze could see there were a number of folders-

“Jesus Christ.”

A folder for each of them, even one for Kyrie, and already one for Mimea.

“Katze,” Raoul whispered, staring wide-eyed at the screen. “I think that’s… Those numbers.”

“Sit down. C’mon.” What could he even say? From what he could see, there were others figuring it out, slowly but surely, until everyone was staring down the screen ready to just look at the damn files.

Finally, a strained, bittersweet cry from Grandma Langeais made it obvious that Riki was in the driveway, which brought everyone, _everyone_ , to the windows to see Riki and Iason. In the afternoon light, they looked as changed as everyone else, hair longer, skin darker, muscle. Why didn’t any of them gain a hundred pounds?

Katze saw the exact moment Lovella explained to Iason and Riki that they needed to continue onwards alone, as the couple looked up at the house in confusion. They slowly made their way up as if there was some sort of trick inside the house- oh, what if they thought they were about to get a surprise party? That would suck. Katze hoped Lovella properly portrayed the seriousness of their situation.

Iason opened the door, and the both of them entered, joined the rest in the living room, and it was so quiet and still, one would think a bomb was about to go off.

Riki finally said, “You cut your hair,” to Guy.

Guy touched his head. “Not because I wanted to.”

That had every head turning his way. The Blondies probably knew that would be odd, to have cut one’s long hair without wanting to, but his closest friends knew that if he didn’t want to, which he wouldn’t, he had to have been forced. Who on earth would force Guy to cut his beloved hair?

Iason was in the middle of being hugged. It was odd to see him receiving such blatant affection from Orphe and Gilbert, but Gilbert wouldn’t even let go until Marcus pulled him back. Raoul took his spot, although he had been the first to hug, and he kept holding Iason.

Marcus’ hands had burn scars. They were not there before. 

The Blondies reached out their hands for Riki, for handshakes, but he grinned, slapped the things away, and hugged them as well.

And to the great surprise of everyone (including Katze), Riki started hugging Norris. Then Luke, with lingering hands on his skinny forearms. And so on, until he even hugged Guy, as the man stood there with his arms at his sides.

“I don’t deserve this, Riki,” Guy said, still not hugging back.

Riki pulled back and softly tapped their foreheads together.

“I think if all y’all came looking for me, most of us wouldn’t be here. Not like you were all that safe here, right?” Riki reached up, petted Guy’s incredibly short hair. “What happened?”

Kyrie intervened at once, “Wait, wait, I ain’t staying here shootin’ the shit. I got somethin’ to show you, and the sooner the better, alright?”

“Nice to see you, too, Kyrie.” Although the words were sarcastic, Riki hugged Kyrie quickly.

Kyrie didn’t stop it. Two pats to Riki’s back and he was done, pulling away with a derisive snort.

Riki stepped to Iason’s side once more, just as Katze came up to hug the breath out of him.

He was okay! Well, probably not okay, okay, but he was alive and in one piece.

“So, what’s up?” Riki asked around Katze’s bicep, signaling him to step away finally.

Kyrie shrugged his leather jacket. “This was on my doorstep, with these instructions.” He handed an envelope to Riki. “It says to do exactly what we’re doing. Keep the parents out, Gram, Maxie. Basically anyone who’s been out in the ‘real world’ or whatever the fuck.”

“Says we gotta watch the folders in order.” Riki kept reading. “‘Do not worry about watching these in vain, for I will know if you haven’t seen it. I wouldn’t know if you viewed them out of order, but it will make more sense if you simply follow instructions. It goes without saying that after your view, it is not permissible to relay your newfound knowledge amongst those outside of the scholastic sphere. Although-’”

Riki sniffed.

“‘Although,’” he continued, “‘That does include not telling Jupiter. I’m looking at you, Gilbert.’”

“I’ve never wanted anyone dead so much in my entire life,” Gilbert whispered, staring at the paper as if he could zap it with eye lasers.

“‘And some new instructions. Don’t come looking for me. You will see my resources, my influence, and I will love not to waste them as the lot of you continue some fool’s errand. I would hate to kill any of you as an example.

“‘Please enjoy the fruits of my project. It has been the most fun I have had in over a decade. Now, Kirie, please destroy the blue machine that was enclosed with this letter.”

Kirie took out a small blue rectangular object.

“What’s that?” Norris asked, finally looking away from the window.

“A GPS device,” muttered Kirie. He dropped it, stepped on it, and it whirred and sputtered to a machinic stop. “A really expensive one. You’d be able to follow a shrimp at the bottom of an ocean with it. There’s a red one. I already know it’s for when we finish. You should… Probably send everybody outside out to eat or something.”

Iason did just that, while everyone else got comfortable, got ready to confront some demons.

Ruphias suddenly busted out what everyone was probably thinking: “Why aren’t you angrier with us, Riki?!”

“Hm?” Riki rubbed his chin, feigning confusion. As he walked in nodding that the deed was done, Iason’s eyebrows shot up at Riki’s high brows and Ruphias’ nervous expression.

“The whole reason that you were gone, at a jail? It was all our fault!”

“Well, unless you personally moved me from one jail to the next, I think someone else had a hand in it.”

Ruphias stomped his left foot, wincing in pain. At this, Leon intervened, “You know what we mean, don’t you? We already thought of something to make this all up to you!”

Riki looked at Iason, who shrugged cluelessly.

Raoul said, “Don’t. It is far more work for him than any sort of stress reliever.”

So Raoul knew, but hadn’t told Katze. That bothered him just a little bit.

“What is?” Riki demanded.

Raoul sighed, rubbing his forehead, jumping as Hubert gasped and took hold of his scarred arm. “It’s mostly healed, Hubie. I’m fine.” Hubert gave his arm a little kiss and the sweetness of the move made Raoul smile. “You know how we wanted you to give us each a week of your time because of the stupid car thing? We entertained the thought of the reverse. We each give you a week of our time.”

“It was a month at first,” Gilbert said under his breath.

“That will be more of a burden! I’ve explained to them how it might stress you with playing Dom to all of them-”

“Playing Dom?” Riki said with a grin, about as pressed as cotton candy.

Not noticing Riki’s apparent eagerness, Raoul nodded with utmost seriousness. “Basically, what you did last year with Iason, they are willing to do for you. But I told them that it takes time and effort and it’s not just some vacation for you. You don’t want to spend twelve weeks learning the ins and outs of all of us and then telling us what to do.”

Riki cleared his throat. “ _I mean…_ ”

“Do you?”

Katze muttered, “Twelve?”

Raoul quickly amended, “Depending on how Katze feels, of course...”

Iason and Riki shared a knowing look, as if they have been low-key gossiping about them the week and a half since they spoke on the phone (which was exactly what they had been doing).

“I’m sure there’s something Katze wants to do with you that could only happen with a little push from Riki,” Iason mused aloud.

Fuck. Raoul was looking at him. Poker face. Poker face. Don’t think about any fantasies that Raoul wouldn’t say yes to in a million years.

Riki laughed. “Oh, I bet he prays about Raoul wearing stockings.”

Don’t look like he’ll murder Riki. Don’t look like he’ll murder Riki.

Raoul pressed a hand to his mouth. “That doesn’t sound…that bad.”

Riki will be his best man. He’ll get a kidney if he needs it.

“What about you, Luke? Have you lathered Gideon up in oil yet?”

A painfully awkward silence.

Head lowered, Luke informed RIki, “I dumped Gideon shortly after we buried you- your empty casket. Said it was safer for me and stupid shit like that.”

“Stupid shit?” Gideon asked. “It’s not stupid that you wanted to be safe. I can assure you that… That you might have had a point.”

“It was bullshit at the time. Plus, it didn’t even work.”

“What… Did something happen to you?”

“Yea.”

Kyrie once more interrupted, “Yea, well, something happened to all of us, obviously. Why do all of you have to be so damn stupid all the time? I’m starting Number One.”

Without further ado, Kyrie angrily clicked on the first video, even as certain people were still standing around and not in the best position to see the television screen.

An incredibly pleasant announcer woman’s voice came across the room, and Kyrie looked out the window and lowered the volume just a bit. The video was still black.

“Hello, everyone. I am so glad you can finally join me on this project. It lasted a bit longer than expected, and the end is not what I had in mind, but all plans need to be changed when they need to be changed. What will be, will be, as we all know. This first video here shall give you an idea of how things had to be changed, for the better I believe.”

***

A video started.

Iason hissed.

It showed the backseat of a sleek black car. The camera switched from several angles until settling on a camera shown from atop the car itself, like a pizza parlor’s car topper, showing the entire left side of the car.

“Hello, pretty lady,” an unknown man called, opening the back door.

Iason could be heard humorlessly correcting, “I am a man.”

“Oh. I thought you was one of them transvestites!”

Whoever it was, was underestimating Iason’s intelligence greatly.

Katze’s observation was proven in the next few moments as Iason tricked the man into revealing he definitely was not a taxi driver.

“Oh!” Leon cried as Iason was pulled into the car and the camera changed angles to give a perfect view of Iason’s pained face as the door closed on his leg and his determined snarl as he struggled to get out of the door.

“Get in there before I break your foot!”

“Then break it, motherfucker!”

An uncontrollable mess of giggling started.

“Oh, Iason, you didn’t really want him to break your foot, did you?”

“Of course not, Hubie. I just run my goddamn mouth. Do not follow my lead.”

“I will not.”

That made a number of them laugh some more, and the mood stayed light as the Iason in the car convinced the man to work with him instead of trying to kidnap him. He also managed to squeeze some information from him- their torturer was a ‘he’. Iason was a natural; he could have easily been at the top of a criminal organization questioning. Where on earth did he learn that from? Jupiter?

“You gave him fifty thousand dollars?” Riki cried. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“It-It doesn’t matter!” Iason sputtered. “And what’s that money in comparison to your life?”

“If it didn’t matter, then why didn’t you tell me?”

Iason pursed his lips, looking away. 

The woman’s voice could be heard as Iason and the man walked away from the car: “I will find this man eventually, Iason, and I will let you know exactly when I do. Look at that! A waste of very good resources and even more for a loose end. Very frustrating, my dear. I should have caught you in this moment but then I had to rethink my plan. To number two.”

***

Katze saw the recording of a very familiar hotel hallway.

Raoul grabbed his arm, eyes closed.

“It was important to my rescheduling that Raoul was in my possession immediately. For I needed Iason for Riki. Unfortunately, unlike the most of you, Raoul, despite his disposition, was very rarely alone and after this, he wasn’t alone at all.”

There had been a video in the stairway, and as Raoul, admittedly incredibly foolishly, let the man tailgate behind him.

There had been a camera in their ROOM; Raoul would not like that (he did not). It was empty, for Katze was in the shower at the time.

“How did he know we were going to room at the hotel?” Raoul asked him. “How? That exact room in that exact hotel?!”

“He probably had plans in place for all the hotels in the area,” Katze said, purely guessing (and completely correct).

It showed him naked, rushing from the shower to get his soap that he brought, and Riki’s dumb ass whistled, breaking the tension.

Back at the stairwell, the brothers were arguing- well, Kev was getting yelled at, as was the usual throughout that entire exchange. Unlike Kev, though, Katze knew the exact moment Raoul regained consciousness as he took a large breath once he came to.

Back to the room: “Room service.”

“Oh, wow, they say it!” Sid cried, and with eyes on him, he explained, “It’s like in the movies. They try to trick you with room service… Sorry.”

Katze on the screen reached for a gun completely naked, pulling it from behind the television stand where he kept one for emergencies (Raoul didn’t like this either!), and so that no would-be attackers accidentally found it first. No worry about that, and the camera switched between the room, the hallway, and the stairway until everyone was in the hallway.

He had smacked the gun away first and foremost, but the man was fast in getting it back and shooting, missing his foot, and Katze was just as quick pushing it out of the way. The next dive by the brother had them both sprawling. The brother reached the gun before he did, and, like an idiot, shot without aiming again, and giving Katze that extra second to smack the gun out of his hand.

Like an idiot. He left his neck exposed for the brother to clutch down on it, and he could see what was going on around him, instead of reliving being choked until he passed out.

He had a morbid curiosity to see how it all had gone down, because, frankly, he was surprised Raoul survived. Sure, he instructed, “Just hold his hands!” but what the fuck did that even mean? Raoul grabbed said hands and didn’t let go, until he shocked the man into a very early heart attack. And instead of running away, he attacked Kev’s brother, scaring himself out of going for the man’s jugular and instead zapped uselessly into his shoulder.

Then the idiot lost control of his emotions when he saw his brother and took out his knife: What would be the purpose of killing Raoul other than getting him killed as well?

Why was he just swinging the thing around? Did they really think so little of rich blond men with gorgeous green eyes and smelling of fresh fallen timber?

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” His friends surrounded Raoul. “I’m fine, everyone.”

“All that blood,” Leon looked through his hands, although the camera was far away to see anything too clearly.

As Raoul called the police, the voiceover continued, “What are the chances that two rich, spoiled young men had more mettle than meets the eye? The answer is low, and yet I had chosen these prized grains from the sands.”

Riki whispered, “Good way to turn this into a plus for himself. Fuckin’ egomaniac.”

“The next little treasure has to be darling Ruphias. Not as people-savvy as Gideon, for sure, but he has his own charm. A cheerful addition to any group. Thrives on group activities, one might say. All he needs now is to perfect mental stability whilst alone. Thankfully, I am here and put him under my wings.”

“Ruphias? Are you okay?” Hubert bent over Ruphias, who had his legs curled up underneath him, head between his knees, hands over his ears. “Ruphias?”

“Let him… Hubie.” Leon patted Hubert on the back, and they both turned back to the screen.

***

Multiple cameras showed nothing more than a room made of stone, ceiling of fluorescent lighting, with the threadbare outline of what was mostly likely the door. Ruphias lied down on a thin, thin mattress, which was next to a toilet, toilet tissue. Ruphias was completely naked. The only other items were a small generator and what looked to be a phone and a laptop hooked up to it. Katze’s eyes automatically looked for any openings in the room, finding a row of dark grates keeping the roof up on all four sides, and hopefully letting any gas fumes from the generator through. They probably held the entirety of the intercom system through which Ruphias’ captor spoke through.

“Welcome, Ruphias Dean. Welcome to your temporary abode.” The pleasant woman’s voice hit the walls of the room, the acoustics like screaming into wet cardboard stuck onto concrete.

“If you want money, just call my parents.” Ruphias sat up on the mattress. “There is nothing I can say or do to convince anyone to give you much of anything. Unless you’re willing to hurt me, but you probably know how much that complicates things.”

A man’s low, growling voice- obviously another disguise- told him, “Do not interrupt me again, Ruphias.”

Back to the woman’s voice: “As you see, you are all alone in this room. You will be for the next week. Don’t worry. You will be fed and bathed, put to sleep at a decent time, woken up at an equally decent time. What you won’t be having is friends, or people to talk to, statuses to check, Instagrams to like, a little Twitter here and there. Of course, you see there is a laptop and a phone in the middle of this room. If you don’t touch either of them, in a week I’ll give you some dogs to keep you company for another week, and then there would be one trivial task for you to complete, whereas two days after that, I will let you go. Any questions?”

A camera zoomed onto Ruphias’ stunned, upturned face.

“You’re going to keep me here alone for half a month? Are you insane?”

Him: “DO NOT CALL ME INSANE!”

Her: “Now, I have to make good on my promise and not talk to you either. See you in a week. I hope not sooner.”

To the empty air, Ruphias murmured, “He can’t be serious. No… No, he can’t be serious. Why did he even take off my clothes? Fucking pervert asshole! Are these even on?” Ruphias walked to the laptop, pulling up its upper lid.

A gameshow alarm burst from the speakers, making Ruphias cover his ears, both in the video, and even more tightly for the man on the sofa.

“That’s a shame! Three days added to the end.”

“I didn’t use it!”

“But I said don’t touch it.”

“Are you fucking…Fucker…” Ruphias sniffed.

“Crying already? I wonder what Iason would do in your shoes?”

“Is that a question? Or wishful thinking?”

Uncertainly, the woman’s voice asked him, “Wishful thinking. Whatever do you mean by that?”

“I mean that if you had Iason in his own personal jail, you wouldn’t have bothered with me, much less ask me that question. ‘Course, that means you’re looking for Iason. Which also means, that Iason is still looking for Riki. And since you’re some fucking pervert who likes to lock people up for heaven knows how long- Riki is in your possession. Am I correct so far?”

A palpable silence followed, before the woman said, “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”

“Well, if you know us only by Kirie and Jupiter, your field of vision is very narrow indeed.”

A bit quickly: “Tell me. Can you answer the question?”

“Iason would start hitting both the laptop and the phone as fast as he could, for as long as you let him.”

Iason burst out, “That’s true!” Many of them laughed. Ruphias, hearing the odd mirth, looked up a little bit, and he smiled softly at the scene on the screen.

“Although, I think you already know that. I’m sure you know there isn’t any pseudo-Jigsaw predicament you can trap Iason in, unless you have Riki, which is why you have him first.”

More silence until: “Have a good day, Ruphias Dean.”

There was more laughter as the video fast forwarded through the days, as Ruphias was forced to use the toilet, sleep on the mattress, and stay completely still for whenever his food was brought in. The deliverers wore black riot gear and large helmets, which Katze recognized with a start.

So. Their captor was a longtime Amoian resident that frequented downtown. That narrowed things down quite a bit. Not enough to do anything about- but still quite a bit.

The week passed, and the video stopped on Ruphias in a corner rocking himself back and forth, which encompassed the majority of the week’s footage. Katze couldn’t fault him on going insane. If Katze had experienced the same, he would be having full-fledged conversations with at least five people in his head.

Turns out, Ruphias coped the same.

“There’s no way we are going back to that Mexican restaurant. They didn’t even have any desserts!

“But they had cheesecake.

“Every place has cheesecake; it’s practically décor.”

He jumped as the intercom shot the woman’s voice across the room, “Ruphias Dean! You have earned yourself dogs as companions. Congratulations. Are you excited?”

In a voice that seemed to have had a lot of use despite Ruphias’ lack of talking partners, Ruphias told the voice, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Ma’am! Oh, you’re at your wit’s end, aren’t you?”

Ruphias covered his temples with a small whine. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“What are you doing? You do that all the time.”

“It helps to keep the voices out.”

“Oh, I think you’ve completely lost your wits.”

“Doggies!” Ruphias wailed from between his elbows. “You said I can have doggies!”

Katze hoped more than anything Ruphias didn’t make the guy mad. He couldn’t take it to see him lose it over dogs.

Although, he would eventually. Because of the task.

The voice said happily, “I sure did! What kind of doggies would you like? You’ll get a fifth one of my own choosing, but which four would you like? Unfortunately, no puppies. It’s better if they are trained to know when they have to go to the door and relieve themselves.”

As if waiting for exactly this moment for millennia, Ruphias listed out, “A black lab. A husky. A St. Bernard. And the cutest Pomeranian you can find.”

“My, my, aren’t you in luck!”

The door opened from inwards as usual, letting in not just a group of the usual black-clad guards, but each of Ruphias’ requested dogs, including a gorgeous black lab and a Pomeranian so cute, Katze very nearly changed his view of pets on the spot. Ruphias was breathless with excitement, laughing almost maniacally as he pet each dog in turn, and then pet them again, and pet them again.

“And now, my pick.”

A guard escorted in a gigantic pit bull, as happy as any dog could be. The dog was obviously not on Ruphias’ top five list, and perhaps not even in his top ten, but after just a moment of hesitation, he nonetheless pet this dog as well.

For whatever reason, Ruphias tried leaving the living room, but Kirie screamed at him, “We all have to watch!”

“He’s not even really watching!” Gideon screamed back.

“He’s looking every once in a while and that counts. If he leaves, he’s very obviously not fuckin’ watchin’!”

Luke asked softly, “How would the maniac know?”

“Who cares? Do you want to risk that? With Mimea out there, who knows where?”

Ruphias sat back down, wordlessly, taking a glimpse at the awful video as it went through seven more days.

Not only was he given the dogs, but he also received dog toys and treats, and he actually seemed to have a good time with the dogs over the course of the next week. Teaching them tricks, cuddling them on the mattress in his sleep, and talking to them as they laid around for dog naps.

But Katze knew exactly what the task would be. It was the only one that made sense. He knew that Ruphias had no idea.

“Hello, Ruphias Dean!”

“Hello, Voice from the Ceiling!”

“You know what comes today?”

Ruphias sighed, responding from the fur of the St. Bernard, “I got to do some task.”

“Do you have any idea what it might be?”

“I think… You are going to tell me to let the dogs go, and make me be alone again for… Five days. Five whole days.”

Sweet kid. Naïve.

The woman feigned a voice of endearment: “Oh, what a sweet little thing you are.”

The door opened for a guard, a guard and their black case which they handed to Ruphias.

After the guard left, Ruphias opened the case, his face blanching at whatever was in the case. His head shielded the camera.

The voice ordered, “Kill them all. I’d suggest you start with the pit bull. He’s a rescue from dog-fighting and recognizes knives. Just to let you know, I’ll never let you leave until you kill all five of them.”

Kirie was the one who said out loud, “ _Knives?_ ”

Katze knew the maniac would tell Ruphias to kill the dogs, but he truly expected for him to be made to use a gun.

The pit bull barked angrily as Ruphias took out the knife. A butcher knife straight from a horror movie- and a terrible weapon against agile opponents with sharp fangs, and one that recognized exactly what was going on.

If Ruphias wasn’t sitting over there, Katze would have never guessed he lived through the next harrowing cycle. Even though he could see with his own eyes that he sat there, humming with eyes squeezed shut, Katze kept expecting for one of the dogs to rip his throat out. He could see the moment Ruphias went to a happy place far away, after standing there with the case in one hand, and the knife in the other.

He put the knife back in the case and closed it, placing it on the bed. He picked up the balls and began throwing them around, a game which drove the dogs crazy and usually put a smile on Ruphias’ face. Except for then.

When the pit bull was sufficiently stuck in a game of tug-o-war, Ruphias’ completely unblinking eyes stayed on the growling dog, and his hand went for the knife. Fortunately (Katze supposed), Ruphias had the knife deep into the dog’s neck before the dog recognized the knife for a second time.

His screeching wails, and the kicking in his own blood, the wails, Ruphias’ heavy sobs as he attempted to jerk the clunky weapon from the animal’s neck, making all the aforementioned worse and worse- all of that was a backdrop to the other four dogs barking in accusatory shrieks, which all only got worse when Ruphias finally freed the knife.

When he brought the knife down on the head of the Pomeranian, the remaining dogs attacked. Katze personally would have gone for the St. Bernard next, but Ruphias learned that the hard way, immediately. Her fangs were in his left ankle, tearing it up. In his pain, he brought the knife down, succeeding in slicing into the poor dog’s coat, and in her letting him go, and allowing him to finish what he started.

He sliced the dog’s stomach open, vomiting the contents of his own.

Finding some sense in his approach, he attacked the husky next, then attacked it, attacked it some more. He tried avoiding the spillage of the dog’s intestines, and it wasn’t very effective.

Still, the dog died miserably.

Ruphias turned to the black lab, who, in her immense confusion, began licking the tears off his face, whining as if to say that he’ll be alright. Ruphias took her down to the mattress, petting her, scratching her belly. He sat up slowly and picked up the knife again, aimed it quickly, just right, and slammed the blade across the lab’s neck. Perhaps, the blade cut into his vocal cords prevented any sounds, not even a whimper, but the death was not quick. The dog seemed to kick forever.

“Congratulations, Ruphias Dean! In five days’ time, you will be released. We will be bringing you a clean mattress. It was ever so nice having you visit.”

“The dogs? The dogs?!”

“The dog-shaped flesh and pieces will be staying.”

Ruphias stood. He looked at each dog-shaped flesh and piece. He began to scream.

As the video fast-forwarded through his terror, which ended in him vomiting again and losing consciousness, the woman came back as a voiceover, “To be honest, I fully expected him to need help, intervention, but he’s stronger than he looks, quicker, too. Mentally, not so much. So much screaming. And he stopped eating or drinking, but that’s what the IV is for…”

The video stopped. Kyrie immediately started the next.

***

It began wordlessly with Aisha Rosen entering a bathroom, one of those large, fancy ones for restaurants that you have to reserve a karmic lifetime in advance. He went to a urinal, pulling himself out. While his stream still ran, the regular maniac guard appeared from a stall, then another, then another.

Aisha tucked himself in.

He then pulled out a revolver, and turned around, and _Jesus Christ Almighty_ -

“Holy fucking shit!” Norris screamed.

Someone else squeaked.

Turned around, safety clicked off, Aisha shot one of the men in the thigh, flicked the barrel, shot the other thigh, flick, next guy’s thigh, his other thigh-

The third had a brain and shouted at him, “Alright, alright! We’ll leave! We cannot be caught by the police. We’ll never come back again, I promise.” They ran over their own legs trying to run away, but the door opened to a much larger man, with a face not so much covered, and Katze assumed that to be a bodyguard of some sort. He cleaned up shop, picking up two of the unfortunate people by the scruffs of their neck, from behind him, another personal guard of Aisha’s came around to help.

The video stopped.

“He ain’t said a word! You packin’, Aisha?” Riki asked with a laugh. The soft-faced man unceremoniously opened up his suit jacket to show the holster and handgun.

“Started lessons as soon as you got…. ‘lost’.”

***

The next video could scarcely be said to be less entertaining, even though no one got hurt. Another lavish bathroom, with Orphe Zavi coming in. He first checked underneath the stalls, kneeling and bending over. Even though that seemed to have checked out, Orphe looked through the doors of each of the stalls- finding there something that made him exit the bathroom immediately.

Another bathroom, less lavish, one that probably belonged to some chain restaurant, but that didn’t stop Orphe from checking it the same way, but when everything was clear, he actually went into the first stall instead.

Sure enough, maniac guard one came in followed by a second, and each went to either side of the stall. In a few minutes, instead of Orphe being taken, a group of bodyguards came to ‘escort’ them out.

Orphe’s video stopped.

***

Hubert’s started then. The maniac needed a new approach, obviously, and he found it at a pet shop for where Hubert shopped, from what Katze could figure, for a hamster. A very well-put-together woman of middling age escorted him to and from various cages for different animals, trying to push a black rabbit onto him. It seemed to be working because at the end of the video, Hubert wanted to see the black rabbit one more time.

“Actually, I am not supposed to tell anyone this, but we do have very young hamsters that are black- well, they have white spots on their eyes like an opposite panda creature, but if you like these rabbits, and you’re actually looking for a hamster, I can show you to them. They are in the back, and it’s past the ten-day mark. No promises, though. Are you interested?”

Happily, Hubert clapped his hands together, answering, “Yes!”

As they walked to the back, the worker chit-chatted, “Not judging at all, but I know you’re from the upper crust. Why do you come to this store? You can have a purebred little hamster, jet-black, in whatever sex you want. Whatever age. Definitely not pregnant, or perhaps very pregnant.”

Hubert shook his head. “I don’t like expensive place animals. Places like these are happy and care about selling animals and not… selling them to me. Does that make sense to you?”

“Sort of?”

“Plus, I know you and I… I don’t want to meet new people right now.”

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re one of my favorite people in the whole world. I remember you gave me my first hamster, and she was pregnant and had babies.”

The woman said uncertainly, “You… You bought the hamster. I didn’t give it to you.”

“Well, when the hamster ate her babies, you said you would refund the hamster, so, that’s kind of like giving the hamster away. I just didn’t take you up on your offer.”

“Hey?” Gideon spoke. “Can we pause? Hubert’s uncomfortable.”

Kirie dismissed the request immediately: “We’re all uncomfortable. I’m not looking to be here all night.”

Hubert answered the air, “It’s okay. I don’t want to deal with Kirie all night, either.”

From the way he said it, it was just an honest reason, not to shame Kirie, but it was still funny, funny enough for everyone to laugh, and Kirie to scowl.

Attention returned to the woman obviously mulling over second thoughts about the whole betraying one of the few people who trusted her unconditionally.

Whatever money she was paid must have been good, though, because she took him into ‘the back’, and, there _were_ actually baby black hamsters with white fur around their eyes, and Hubert just looked so happy. “When will they be ready to go home? After weaning? I don’t want to stress them out.” Hubert turned around.

A guard in black had replaced her. In a growly voice, he commanded, “Come with me, and you won’t get hurt.”

“Where’s Miss Bibi?”

“Miss Bibi’s fine. Come with me.”

“Out the front?”

“C’mon.”

“Miss Bibi… Betrayed me?”

Cocking his helmet, the man laughed, “What makes you even think that?”

“Because you’re going to throw her under the bus right now. If you don’t care about going in the front, or out the back, then we must be either recorded completely, or not recorded at all. They will question her for weeks while any trail that leads to you and who you work for runs cold. I watch a lot of crime shows!”

Katze didn’t think the average person would come to that conclusion so quickly in the midst of their own kidnapping, but if that reasoning helped Hubert not get kidnapped, more power to him and his crime shows.

Hubert’s words momentarily befuddled the would-be captor, and he smacked his own leg with impatience.

“Miss Betty Bob, I am needing your assistance!”

From just around a shelf full of documents, Bibi came, clutching her elbows, and probably regretting ever getting involved. Katze doubted Hubert not one bit, and from Betty Bob’s expression, she didn’t either. Too bad for her.

When she breeched arm’s distance, Hubert snatched her to his side and stood in front of her.

“Goddamnit!” the grunt screeched.

“Why do you think I would just let her be a hostage? I’ve watched a lot of movies!”

Katze often learned that what is learned in books avoids the learning which can be gained in the streets, and vice versa, but, as far as he’s learned, Hubert had troubled reading, and much more trouble navigating the streets on even a physical level, but he learned more than anyone for both just by his shows.

He blocked the path between Miss Bibi and the guard.

“This will make things messy, but, oh well.” The guard took out a gun and pointed it at Hubert’s chest. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“No.”

_No_. Katze knew this ended well, somehow, or else the video wouldn’t have stopped here, and the voiceover would have continued instead of staying so petulantly silent. Still, Katze knew enough about the world than to risk a gun to his chest going off.

“You’re really gonna die for someone who gave you up for money?”

“She’s nice!”

“Really? How you figure? Would a nice person give up someone for money?”

“Yes! Many people do it. Some nice people do bad things, a lot of bad things, even really bad things, but that doesn’t mean they are bad.”

“Aw, that’s cute. Am I a good person then?”

“How can I judge someone who is obviously unable to do anything but what they are told? You think that I think that you… I mean, you think that I think that- your helmet isn’t to keep yourself safe! It’s to keep you… To keep your boss safe. You’ll never be able to do honest work underneath them and you don’t have a choice. I’ll probably never know if you’re a good person or not.”

The man laughed, this time, so humorlessly, Katze knew he had already given in.

Still, he had to try.

“You know, if I don’t take you, my boss will hurt me. Might even kill me.”

Hubert nodded, sniffing, while fiddling with his fingers nervously. “I know, but, all things considered, Sir, I cannot bring myself to want to save you over her. Even if that means not preventing your… your… your death.”

“So I have to die before she gets questioned?”

“That’s a leading question, you meanie! You can die before she goes to jail and I get taken with you to god knows where, that’s the real, um, conunun… condundum.”

“Conundrum, kid. It’s conundrum.” The man sighed. “Boss thought it would be wise to just get to the heart of things, less people wasted on arrests and bullshit. Of course, we run the risk of one person not… not being enough. Well, I can’t kill you, and I have a feeling that if I try to blow off the head of Bibi there, you will get in the way, and I’ll be dead anyway. So. Hm. Have a good life kid.”

The man pulled off his helmet- revealing himself to in fact be a woman. Katze didn’t know if she had an electronic disguiser, or if she had skillfully disguised her voice, but it didn’t matter, because she pointed the gun at her head and pulled the trigger.

Hubert began to scream under his breath, tears running down his face.

The voiceover merely said, “A waste,” and then shut off.

“Gross… Gross… Gross…” Iason whispered under his breath, curling into Riki’s arms.

Katze had to hold Raoul himself, and he could feel the man’s heart even in his arms.

“Alright. Next.” Kirie’s short words did nothing to hide his discomfort.

***

“Now this is one of my favorites! I had to make it all worthwhile because it just took so much work to get you together. Here is Zeke Bell, Marcus Jayd, Griffith Wallace, and Haynes Salas. Lovely friends, strong young men, and altogether when they decided to escape their parents’ watchful eye and go to a bar. What a silly thing for them to do! I had no way of getting to them if they had stayed at home.”

“Wait, if there’s four of us in this video,” Marcus whispered, “Then what are in the other ones?”

In what looked like the same room Ruphias was trapped in, minus rotting dead dogs and mattress, the four of them were sitting in thin wooden chairs, strapped to the arms and legs with belts, naked, and showcasing the bods that distracted Katze only momentarily, only… momentarily… Those moles right below both nipples on Marcus’ firm pecs were just, mmm…

Moment gone (momentarily).

Katze remembered Marcus to be the quiet type, even quieter than himself, but that may have been mostly the extreme juxtaposition between him and Zeke, who, while not very clever, was brash and honest, and often accompanied by Haynes, often the instigator of Zeke’s brashness and honesty with twice of the cleverness. Between the two of them Katze remembered Griffith often chastising, “Yea, let’s not do that.” Unless whatever they did involved Ruphias in some way. Concerning Ruphias, Griffith might as well be a five-year-old with a crush instead of a 22-year-old. With a crush.

“So much money to scrounge this up last minute! Thankfully, all’s well that ends well. Oh! They are waking up!”

It was Marcus who was stirring. His eyes fluttered, and he looked left towards Zeke, then looked right at Haynes, then made eyes all around the stone room, and the worker bees all in their one color. Katze counted seven on the wall to the door, seven on the opposite wall, five each on the other two. The generator from before had made its reappearance, and the door to whatever was attached to the room was wide open, letting in a blinding beam of light.

“Zeke…” Marcus gasped. “Haynes… Your dad… is going to kill us.”

These magic words woke up Haynes. “Oh, shit, still super drunk. Fuck a duck, we’ve been kidnapped, are you fucking serious? God, god, god, dad is going to kill me.”

“Your dad? How can you be fucking worried about your fucking dad?!” Zeke screamed. “Why are we tied up? This is the same place as fucking Ruphias’. Oh, my, fucking, A, why did we go to a bar? Fuck, fuck… I’m so goddamn drunk!”

They all yelled as the perpetual announcer made herself known: “Marcus Jayd, Zeke Bell, Haynes Salas, and Griffith Wallace.”

Griffith muttered, “Yep, same guy.”

“DO NOT INTERUPT ME!”

“Definitely same guy.”

“The next person who speaks without permission will have the tip of his finger removed.”

Silence.

“Thank you for the peace and quiet. Now. Here is the game the four of you delicious masses of men will play. There are four of you and twenty-four of my people. Technically, that means six for the each of you.

“You see, here is the game. Number One will come in front of you.” Guard number one went in front of them, carrying their box. “And they will tell you what they will do to you.”

They opened their box to reveal a small whip, telling them, “I will hit you as hard as I can six times with this whip.”

“And this is where the game starts! One of you will offer to receive his ministrations, or, one of you will promise to commit to Number Two. Of course, you do not know Number Two’s assignment, but you will have to commit nonetheless. In that case, after that, Number One will let you again know what their assignment is, and the four of you will decide who will receive it, or who will commit to Number Three. I can suppose that the lot of you know how it will work from then on? It ends when either twenty-four is done, or is skippable per the rules. Enjoy!

“Five minutes,” Number One told them.

“I volunteer as fucking tribute,” Griffith offered.

“We can all do it,” Zeke counter-offered.

“For what? We already have matching tattoos. C’mon, let’s just get on with this.”

Haynes asked, “Are you serious? You don’t want to maybe buy them off?”

“I think,” Marcus murmured, “if we don’t threaten them as well, we got nothing. But I bet there are people outside this room who are willing to kill them, who we haven’t had the chance to persuade. Let’s just get on with this. Are you sure, Griffith?”

“Yea.” Griffith nodded, head wobbling. “Let’s just go in order.”

Number One then started on Griffith, striking once on one side of his chest, and Griffith clenched his teeth. Not something one should do when being hit, but that was neither here no there. Really sobered him up, though.

Marcus asked, “Griffith?”

“It wasn’t that bad. You know, I bet if Riki was handling it, it would have been almost pleasurable.”

“You’ve been fantasizing?” Marcus’ slightly drunk self teased.

“To be honest, I fucking have.”

Riki whistled in real life. “Alright, Griffith, I hear ya.”

Griffith covered his face in utter embarrassment, and Katze smacked Riki on the head, a familiar move he actually missed doing.

“I am Number Two. I will be flicking the forehead of the volunteer with my middle finger.”

“SUCK A GODDAMN DICK YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” Griffith screamed. He started laughing shortly after, crying just after that. “Oh, fuck, are you gonna kill us?”

Haynes shrugged. “Well, we’ll see. Nothing we can do about it now. Flick, please.”

The guard flicked his forehead.

Number Three: “I will shoot a taser into your right arm.”

Marcus sighed. “Ah, shit, no.”

“Me, neither…” Zeke murmured.

Griffith and Haynes agreed, at least by their faces.

“Someone must commit to Number Four,” Three informed. 

“I will, since I skipped,” Marcus agreed immediately.

Number Four stood in front of him and said, “I will shoot a taser into your groin area.”

Everyone couldn’t help but laugh along with Marcus in the video. However, there was no laughter when the guard did exactly what he said he would. Marcus seized up, a tight short shout, and he curled over with a sigh.

“Marcus?” Zeke asked.

“Just… tired…”

“Did you have a fucking heart attack?”

“No… I don’t think so. What would that even feel… feel like?”

“Would someone take mine?” Number Three inquired, as Four removed the barbs from the small bleeding wounds they left behind- obviously not on Marcus’ dick, or else that would have probably knocked him unconscious. “Or will someone commit to Five?”

“I’ll take yours,” Zeke answered. He flinched several times at the electrodes entering his skin, and his skin did break out with actual beads of sweat.

With twenty-four people to go through, there were duds of course. Five was taken by Griffith, forced to eat a worm. Six was taken, as they were still going in order, by Haynes, with a solid punch to the face, as were Seven, Eight, and Nine, all punches to various areas. Ten changed things up. Number Ten was a wooden baseball bat over the thighs, hard enough for the bat to break. Haynes took it- but the swinger was no MVP, and needed seven whacks to finally break, while the bruise went bright purple after three.

“I guess having a guy with a weak swinging arm is all part of the fun?” Haynes said wryly. The guard poked him in the face with the bat’s broken end.

Eleven kicked it up a notch, just a small one.

“What the fuck? Are you kidding?” Marcus shook his head.

“I can take it, Marcus.” Although, Zeke seemed just as uneasy.

“No. I… I always… Wanted a piercing…”

Griffith scoffed. “Your lip!”

“What’s the difference?”

“Between your lip and your dick? If you rub your lips hard enough, can you achieve what your dick can?”

“Achieve?” snickered Griffith.

“Will Marcus be taking mine?” Number Eleven put them back on track.

“Yes, I will.”

From what Katze could see, Eleven did everything correctly, and if Eleven’s boss wasn’t coo-coo-la-choo, he would have thought Eleven’s day job concerned piercings, maybe tattoos now and again. Marcus’ body jumped with the pinches of the needle, although his stiff muscles tried to keep it at bay.

“Tsss! That burns!”

The alcohol, most likely.

Marcus’ new piercing glittered as Number Twelve came forward.

Behind Twelve a… contraption with many gear pieces got plugged up to the generator, starting up almost immediately. One of the other guards brought out rope in a lasso, and gave it to Twelve.

“I will wrap this around one of your necks and start the machine. I will shut off the machine once you count by sevens, straight, to two hundred.”

As he was next, Zeke asked, “What does the machine do?”

Haynes blew a raspberry. “It brings you a cow.”

“What?”

Griffith rolled his eyes. “What do you think it does? It’s rope around your neck.”

“Ah…Oooooh. Okay? Let’s go.”

“You don’t want to try the next one?” Marcus asked worriedly.

“You know what. Sure. But I’mma be the one to commit. To thirteen.”

Thirteen came before the four. He picked up the rope.

Although Griffith was not next, he still had the empathy to say, “Fuck me in the ass.”

“Unfortunately, Riki isn’t here,” Haynes joked.

“No, no, no, I’m topping. No way I can take him.”

Riki whistled again from the living room sofa, and Griffith whined, “Maybe we can skip the parts where I bare my fantasies out to the universe?”

“We can’t skip anything.” Ever the obedient servant, Kirie denied him right away.

Thirteen wrapped the rope around Zeke’s neck. “Count by twos to fifty.”

Without another word, Thirteen started the machine, and the diameter of the rope shrunk more and more. It was twice as small when Zeke called, “Um, guys? It doesn’t make sense for me to count since I’m about to get choked.”

The other three started all at once: “Two, four-” Then they restarted altogether: “Six, eight, ten, twelve,” and then someone said, “Ten.”

“We already said ten!” Marcus groaned. “It’s fourteen!”

Guard Thirteen corrected, “You must start over. It is by twos straight.”

“I thought you fucking meant straight to a hundred, not twos straight.”

Griffith started again, “Two, four, six, eight-” He started stuttering a bit in the forties, but made no further mistakes. Still, that was enough time for Zeke’s chair to start leaning back, all the way to almost a forty-degree angle, when the machine stopped pulling the rope. Thirteen released Zeke, who breathed in, and out, in, out.

“Fuck,” he cursed shakily. “I almost pissed myself.”

“Me, too,” whispered Griffith. “I’ll do Twelve.”

“What was Twelve?”

“By sevens to two hundred- wait, are you going to loosen the rope a bit?” Griffith demanded of Twelve. They started the machine without answering. “Thank god Zeke’s counting.”

Zeke made quick work of counting by sevens to two hundred, taking less than a second on each number, so that, although Griffith had a tight rope from the beginning, his chair barely tipped over.

Fourteen had Haynes eating a worm, while Fifteen forced three sheets of paper down Marcus’ throat. Sixteen had Zeke plucking his eyebrows clean. Seventeen, plucked Griffith’s pubic hairs.

Haynes skipped having his shoulders dislocated, and got his wrist broken instead, and so Marcus got his shoulders popped out.

Twenty stood in front of Zeke as another pulled a small brazier on wheels into their field of vision. From the brazier, Sixteen pulled out a poker- no, a branding iron with two ends, spelling out ‘sixteen’ in cursive, about a foot long and bright red with heat. All four pairs of their eyes watched the guard hold the iron. Katze saw the shimmering of the insanely hot air even from the view of the camera.

From the living room, everyone but the four tried not to look their way, but it was hard. One of them had to have had gotten the brand- or committed to the rest. They had finished the orchestrator’s little game in a satisfying enough way that this became his favorite- or at least he said it was.

“No, um… No thanks.” Zeke took a deep breath. “Fuck. But someone has to get it eventually.”

“You really think something will top getting branded?” Haynes said through his still dry throat, or perhaps he was wheezing through the pain in his shoulders. He then quipped, “Like a cow.”

Zeke shook his head. “No. I don’t think anything tops being branded. Even if I can choose where it goes.” Zeke shook his head a couple more times. “If anything does, I’ll take it. But right now. No. I can’t. I’ll commit to Twenty-one. This is almost over. Oh, god, it’s almost over. I won’t lie. I’mma be sleeping in my parents’ bed for at least a month.”

“Dad’s gonna get tired of me,” Haynes laughed along.

Twenty-one picked up the rope.

“No,” Zeke whispered. “Please.”

“Count by sevens to a thousand.”

“A thousand!” several voices cried, from the video and from real life.

“Do the numbers all have to go through one person?” Zeke asked quickly.

“No,” said Twenty-one.

“I’mma start counting, and when the rope’s too tight, I’ll put up my fingers for as long as I can. Go as slow as you need to because it’s already going to be two minutes just counting. Seven, fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-eight, twenty-”

The group of them were very fortunate that the four in those chairs weren’t, say, Hubert, Norris, Sid, and Katze, because one of them would be dead as doornails. Unless they were forced to continue until they managed to get to the end- who was he kidding? It would have left only one of them alive. Perhaps.

Zeke was a wizard. He made it to 777 by counting aloud, and 840 on fingers.

Griffith started, slow as balls, but still faster than Katze would have tried.

“Eight. Four. Seven. Eight… Five. Four. Eight. Six. One. 868. Eight… Fuck…Um…”

Haynes picked up: “875. 882. 889. 896.” He began to gasp. Hyperventilate. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t see him. I can’t see him. I can hear him but, oh, god, he can’t breathe! What number did I get to? Fuck I forgot.”

Zeke had long pissed himself. The cord edged through a hole just big enough for the rope, and the hole had been board through a wooden board, against which the back of Zeke’s head squeezed. In some sort of second wind, he bounced in his chair to straighten up as much as possible, earning him a few inches and at least ten precious seconds, but made the final moments all the more dangerous. The cord no longer kind of pushed against the bottom of his jaw, but now wrapped squarely around his his windpipe.

Marcus had his eyes closed, crying, and between shuddering breaths continued to count, “Nine-zero-three. Nine-ten. Nine-seventeen.” He tried a few deep breaths, gave up. “Nine-two-four. Nine-three-one. 938. 945. Nine, five, two. 959. Nine-six-six. Nine-seven-three… Zeke! I can’t hear him!”

Haynes picked up while Marcus tried to toss his chair around, succeeding in falling backwards and knocking his head into the concrete: “Nine-eighty! 987! Nine, nine, four! Zeke! Zeke!”

Zeke’s rope was removed, and his head fell forward, like a limp noodle.

Hubert cried out, “What if he dies! I don’t know what I’ll do!”

“Hubert, honey, he’s over there,” Ruphias told him the good news. Hubert had to turn around completely to get a good look, and Zeke nodded at him, flashing a neck very much still showing the effects of his torture.

“Myself?” Twenty prompted. “Or Twenty-two.”

A squeak from Zeke: “Me. Twenty.”

“The fuck you will! Me! Fucking twenty-two.” Marcus demanded from the floor.

“Choose one,” ordered Twenty.

“I’m…” Zeke gasped. “I’m…. Almost out of it… Just… Push me over the edge. Please.”

Desperately, Marcus disagreed vehemently, “No! Twenty-two, me.”

“If Marcus wants it, I’m not stopping him,” Griffith admitted. “But just not Zeke.”

“Majority rules,” Haynes said softly.

Zeke tried again: “What… if… it’s count…”

One of the guards behind him chuckled, “Lucky for y’all that’s the last of that.” A second. “Fuck.”

It was quiet for nearly a full minute before the woman’s voice ordered, “Let Marcus up.” Eight followed instructions. “Continue.”

“Well, he’s dead.”

Katze couldn’t place who said it, but they were probably right.

Twenty-Two gave Marcus a knife, not a butcher’s knife, a clean, sharp, probably incredibly expensive knife. With a marker, he drew a square, about three square inches, on Marcus’ bare thigh.

“Cut off the skin within these lines.”

“Oh, Marcus, shit, Marcus,” Griffith whispered. “Oh, god, oh, god, god… God…”

As Twenty-two released his hands, Marcus stuttered, “L-L-L-L-Let m-m-me-me concentrate.”

Katze could barely watch.

“W-W-W-Watch!” Kyrie shouted at the rest of them. “Watch! Don’t be such, such, such p-p-p-pussies!”

“Sounding real brave yourself, Kyrie,” Iason said, from between his fingers.

“Fuck off!”

“Fuck!” Marcus’ shaking hands dropped the knife. He barely got two inches into the square’s edge. Picking it up, he broke his skin again, and he went fast, so fast he slipped from the edge and had to slice open a new portion of the black marker. It was hard to see, yet completely clear.

Katze was getting dizzy, but just in case no one else needed to, he kept looking.

Kirie had to have had a camera or some such to make sure someone was looking at all times. Upon closer inspection, Katze noticed something in his ear, and, unless he blew out his eardrums with his wild night life and needed a hearing aid, it was a little speaker for a woman’s voice to talk through. Kirie was good at hiding it, Katze would give him that.

The blood kept making Marcus slip but he managed to finish the outline, and, unwisely, he lifted the skin from the corner, slowly.

“Rip it off, like a band-aid.”

This wasn’t Griffith or Haynes, but one of the guards. His boss liked to torture though! But the guard would know how far he would be tortured for his transgression; might have been in for a penny, in for the pound sort of deal. That was the last of that though; someone kicked the legs out from underneath him and he was told to, “Shut the fuck up!”

But that stranger’s advice was what Marcus needed. He took the skin between thumb and forefinger, gripped it like a vise, and- well, Katze assumed the skin was pulled away because he couldn’t bring himself to look. Just hear.

“Aaaaah! Fuck! God!” He sobbed a bit, clutching the blood running down his leg. “I wanna go home. I wanna go home. I wanna go home.” He continued muttering to himself.

He was now as out as Zeke.

“I commit myself to twenty-three,” Haynes whispered.

Twenty-three took the skin slice from wherever it was, and threw it on the brazier. After a short while, they took the roasted piece off and put it to Hayne’s lips.

“Eat it. If you puke, you will have to eat that, too. Until you can keep it down.”

Katze thought he would make it. He ate it, chewed it, swallowed.

Then he vomited.

“No! No! Noooooo! Please, no…”

Haynes threw up three more times before he kept it all down. Looking out, towards a happy place, or just elsewhere.

“I commit to… To twenty-four.” Griffith was shaking so much, his hair seemed to vibrate.

Twenty-four moved not an inch before the woman came over the intercom.

In staccato beats: “Cut Griffith loose. Give Griffith the knife. Bring the guard to the front.” Everyone knew which one. “Take off his helmet.” Man revealed, complete stranger to everyone now in the room. “Bare his torso. Lay him down on the ground. Now, Griffith-”

“You want me to kill him?” Griffith said in a monotonous tone.

“Chop off the tip of Griffith’s pinky finger.”

Griffith made a small whine. That’s it. 

“Wrap up his finger with some gauze. Good. Now. Griffith. Killing him is what will happen, eventually. But just stabbing him is so… It’s not enough. No, not enough! For ruining a perfectly good session! No. You need to cut off his head with your knife, and then balance that severed head atop your own for ten seconds.”

“I… can’t… do… that.”

The woman said nothing.

The soon-to-be-dead guard did: “Look. Kid. I’ve seen a woman die of dehydration because she refused to kill her sister, a sister she ain’t spoke to for decades. And she had to slowly pull out her sis’ intestines and line it up in front of her. And… Before she died, it was made absolutely certain that she could watch her sister boiled, one limb after another until her entire body was submerged. The woman was free to go back to her natural life if she did as she was told, but she couldn’t do it.

“I’m a dead man. I’d rather you chop off my head than die of thirst before, I don’t know, one of these guys flay me and fillet me. C’mon, hold the blade right over my neck and push down. It’s gonna catch really bad on the cartilage in my throat and the bones in my neck. Just wiggle a bit and you’ll slice right on through between a couple vertebrae. Trust me, I know. I have no goddamn idea how you gonna balance my head, but good fucking luck. I honestly don’t want to be in your shoes. I don’t get why he’s fuckin’ with y’all so bad.”

The woman warned, “If you don’t begin within the next sixty seconds, Griffith, you will be locked in here with your friends for three days alone, when you will try again, within a minute, unless you don’t make it and then-”

Griffith brought up the knife and brought it down. It caught. On his throat. Of course.

Kirie launched himself at a trashcan to relieve the contents of his stomach. Even as he did so, as he choked between heaves, he directed, “Someone has to watch!”

“Don’t worry, Kirie.”

Riki.

“I know our Headmaster or whatever he thinks of himself is watching and listening and prolly talking to you through that ear thingy of yours. Are we good? Do we need more than one person?”

“Iason is still watching.” 

“Oh, baby, you don’t have to watch.”

“You don’t think I know that!”

Kirie straightened up, continued, “But Raoul, Hubert, Cal, Norris and… And Griffith. They need to look at the screen for at least five seconds.” He turned his chest to everyone else. “Okay, yea, that’s… That’s fine.”

Raoul didn’t even have his eyes closed, although he was curled into Katze’s chest. Katze realized he couldn’t close his eyes either. Didn’t want to see that, nope, nope. Nothing good there at all right at this moment.

The tv was less than not better, for Griffith was still trying to work his way through the man’s neck. So much blood. So much blood. How he hadn’t vomited up his soul, Katze didn’t even want to know.

He did it, though, he did it. He did it all, and there was probably no part of Griffith’s body that was free of the man’s blood.

“What a conclusion!” the woman cheered. “At the time, I was simply furious, but, as time went on, I realized the perfection of this coda. Absolutely beautiful. The men are all shattered so magnificently. This video alone has garnered me almost half a million dollars just within these months. They love the twist at the end.”

The video ended.

“Can we please take a break?” Marcus asked. “Can we please take a break? Please? Just five minutes.”

Kirie now visibly listened to his ear piece. “She says no. No breaks. Don’t ask again.

“Actually, if… If Iason says it like he means it. Then we get thirty minutes.”

Iason stood, fluffing his hair over his shoulders. “Oh? Easy.”

Katze needed whatever Iason was smoking to get that confidence.

“He says if you fail, we’ll have to watch all the videos over and over again until everyone watches without looking away, for every video. He says it’s up to you to risk it.”

Marcus wanted to risk nothing: “Nevermind, Iason. We can do this.”

Kirie sighed. “You… You don’t think he can do it? Just silly bravado?”

“Is that you asking, or her?”

“Just answer the goddamn question.”

“I don’t think… I don’t think he could do it.”

Kirie sighed even more deeply. “Everyone who believes that Iason could do it, raise their hands. And don’t lie.”

Quite a lack of hands.

But Riki’s and Raoul’s shot up.

“God. What?” Kirie blinked. “Um. Okay. Yea. If… If Iason does it well… We can skip Cal getting orally raped as well.”

Cal wasn’t even looking at anyone as he said under his breath, “Iason. You’re fine. You’re absolutely fine. I’m okay. It’s fine.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Iason, don’t! Or else I’ll have to watch it for real, and I don’t even want to hear it! Riki, stop him!”

Riki shrugged. “I believe in him one-hundred-percent.”

Iason walked to Kirie, falling to his feet, crawling to him. Katze glanced at Riki, who was rubbing his lower lip, _smiling_. Katze _really_ needed to get whatever Riki and Iason was on to make his nerves like steel like that. Everyone thought that just because he was older, that he had a stint with organized crime, he had his ducks all in a row, but he ran away from organized crime, and from almost every problem in his life, at least temporarily. If he hadn’t been trapped in the Am mansion, he would have holed up somewhere else, most likely Gran’s. Definitely Gran’s.

“What are you doing?” Kyrie demanded. “Stop wasting time. You have less than a minute.”

Iason stopped at an angle. Staring, at an angle.

Just stared.

“Forty-five seconds.

“Thirty.

“Fifteen.

“Okay. Time’s… Time’s up.”

Iason sighed long and hard. “Well, that fucking sucks. I thought I could get into it, but kind of got lost with the time because I don’t know where the fucking camera is.”

“The camera?”

“Yes, Kirie! The camera! The camera that lets _her_ know that Raoul, and Hubert, and Cal, and Norris _and-and_ Griffith that they aren’t looking for twenty minutes, and they need a refresher on how to cut a man’s head off. Well, we’re all going to be taking that refresher course.” Iason stood, turned his back to Kirie. “Let’s get it fucking started. Or start the next one, whatever. Is it Cal? I’ll apologize… Later. On my hands and knees if you want. Or while Riki gets done with y’all, all of you can get done with me.”

Kirie whispered, “Nevermind.”

Iason looked over one shoulder with a, “Hm?”

“Nevermind, she said. We can have a break. We don’t have to watch Cal’s video.”

“Hmmmm. You can fuck right on off. I didn’t follow the rules. You don’t have to go easy on me. My pride is quite bruised enough, you know.”

“She says that she will not humor the whims of a spoiled brat.”

Smiling, licking his lips, checking his nails, Iason replied, “I guess _she’s_ the only brat that can be humored now.”

“WHY YOU ANTAGONIZIN’ HIM RIKI!” Kirie screamed. With a curse, he rubbed his face.

“Name’s Iason. And antagonizin’ whom? What him? We seem to be besotted by a mad _woman_.”

“Just. Let’s just move on. Break. Skip Cal’s. Finish up. Get Mimea back. Feckin’ please?”

Iason shrugged. “Feckin’ okay.” He rejoined Riki on the couch.

“Easy now,” Riki chided, “those big ol’ brass balls of yours will crush my legs.”

“Shut up. I was _so_ terrified. Let’s get something to drink. I’m thinking an entire bottle of rosé.”

It looked like Kyrie was instructed to almost react to that, but ‘the Headmaster’ changed his mind. Katze realized suddenly that it was all an act, from Iason. Honestly, he didn’t really get it, or he had some superficial intelligence about it, but whatever that was going on between Iason and the Headmaster was some deeper level scene shit. Way deeper than he has ever gone even though he joined the club shortly after Riki (to keep an eye on him). Riki got it, and Katze could hear him chastising Iason.

But Riki kept Kirie close and looking at them and in hearing distance.

“Stop berating me in front of the teacher, Riki.”

“Then cool it. And if he asks again, don’t play around.”

“Hm.”

And Riki gave Kirie a look, such an ambiguous look that Katze didn’t know if Riki was being smug or ashamed.

From over a very full glass of whiskey- smelled like licorice- Raoul stated, “You think this is all an act.”

“Do you?” Katze returned. Both of their eyes were on the pair, as were many.

“Partly. I think it is strongly… partly. And that drives this maniac wild.”

“In a good way?”

“I… I don’t think he knows how he feels yet. That’s why he’s jerking Kirie back and forth. I think we need to finish the videos without fail before he decides.”

“Yea. Me, too.”

They gathered their wits about them in their break, a mostly silent, tense break that did not feel like a break at all until Cal broke the silence, “Thank you.” He looked at Kirie. “Ma’am. In your own way you have partially humored a certain spoiled brat, and I thank you for it.”

“There are three brats now?”

_TOPT!_

Riki didn’t even look at Iason after he hit him. Just ordered, “Stop.”

Iason looked down, at the back of Riki’s head. He then snatched up the rosé he chose from the wine rack and returned to the living room. When Katze, and the rest, joined him, Iason had joined the far side of the room, sitting on an ottoman, barely in Kirie’s field of vision if he were to stand in his spot. The exasperation would have made the mansion explode if it had an eighth of the energy of what was currently felt as everyone, but Iason, returned to their original positions.

(Un)Fortunately, Kyrie didn’t notice, and started the video after the next one.

***

“After Cal’s lovely awakening- oh, his mouth is just stupendous- well, after all that, I got the hankering, as one might suppose, for something slow. Metaphorically, not speaking of Leon’s dimwittedness, which we shall see in somewhat full display today.

“It was by pure accident that Gilbert was caught with him. I had other plans for Gilbert. Long, arduous plans, that would have more than made up for this…. For this.”

He sounded disappointed. Good. But why?

Leon and Gilbert, naked as usual- what was up with the guy and being naked?! Wouldn’t it have all been better to just kidnap them and drop them off whenever? How would Katze know? He wasn’t a maniacal sadist. However, maybe even he could set up a pair of men into heavy chairs, heavier chairs than the one Zeke’s and the others were in. Not very tippable, besides the fact that they were in a narrow room with a wall flush against their seats. They sat in front of large monitors showcasing thirteen rows of sixteen playing cards, like those for Solitaire. They were numbered 1 to 208.

Below the cards, there was a sign, glowing red, for ‘Player One’ and one, white, that read ‘Player Two’.

Gilbert awoke first, with a start and a small scream, waking up from a nightmare, a little early, Katze thought, but he didn’t have to worry about his life when he thought he was the only one targeted.

“Leon? Well, this is a surprise.” Gilbert sighed, shivered. “It’s cold in here.” His breath was visible.

“Gil…ber…t,” voiced Leon slowly, his usual slowness made slower by the cool air. “Cold.”

“Yea. It’s fucking cold. What’s this?”

“A big tv.”

“I think this is a computer.”

“At least we won’t be hurt.”

The lady chimed in, “Hello! I am sure you know what this is all about, and I just want to relax today.”

Gilbert said nothing. Leon said nothing.

“Such a difference from Cal screaming and begging and having to be held down.”

They said nothing.

“I suppose the two of you are being held down. That doesn’t matter, now, does it? What you need now are the rules! Before you are 208 cards consisting of four decks of cards, obviously missing jokers. The game is to find each card matching cards from the other decks. Ace of diamonds with the other three, all the ace of clovers, all the ace of hearts, and so on and so forth. Understood?”

Gilbert’s mouth, firmed up and thin, twitched at the corners. From between them, he spat, “I have a question.”

“Go on, dear Gilbert.”

“Do you know that Leon… and I… have dyslexia?”

Katze sure didn’t.

“Why, yes, I believe I have been told as much by someone or another. But different forms, correct? Yours is a bit more of the switching letters and numbers back and forth, while Leon’s, well, we know his is a bit more advanced.

“Anyway, there is a time limit! It’s a bit cold where you are, should be about fifty-five degrees, and the temperature shall drop by five degrees every fifteen minutes, twenty degrees per hour. You wouldn’t want to be there in an hour with freezing temperatures, or in two hours with only fifteen degrees, and definitely not three when we are in the negatives. There is no wind, so you shouldn’t get any colder than need be, but, I wouldn’t want to sit in those chairs!

“Some extra rules. Gilbert, you are player one. Leon, you are player two. Only the player whose turn it is can speak. If you do not follow the rules, the cards will be shuffled, and you will have to start over. Let the game begin.”

A timer came up. Two minutes.

Gilbert stared angrily at the screen. For his two minutes.

Leon’s turn came up with fifteen whole minutes, and someone hissed, “Oh, fuck off.”

“Gilbert?” Leon called. “It’s okay. Okay? We just need to take our time and get all the numbers? If we don’t try, we die. If we fail, we die. The only time we can live, is if we play. This is a fun game, don’t you think? We should make it a drinking game when we all get back together again.”

That’s something Leon liked, was his drink. He never seemed to get drunk, though, just watched everyone get sillier and sillier, and drunk his orange juice and gin or apple juice and whisky or chocolate milk. Until someone- Mimea, Katze remembered- showed him how to make an alcoholic chocolate milk. Which he liked. A lot.

“Okie dokie. Flip one, two, three, four.” Ace of spades, three of clubs, jack of clubs, and nine of diamonds. “Um. That’s an… Uh… It has only one black… Thingie…. So it’s an ace! That has three thingies, so that’s a three! That’s a man, but he doesn’t have a beard, so that’s a Jack. I… I can’t tell if the last one is a nine or eight. But you’re better at that.”

He went through several rows, not noticing that he saw another jack of clubs, and even three aces of hearts. However, his determined attitude warmed Gilbert up enough to make him take it seriously. Still, it took an hour to go through all the cards, with Gilbert finding four quadruples.

As they went through the lists a second time, Leon announced, “I’ll draw a picture of the other side! Okay? I already have a picture of the front with all the numbers. So. Picture. So heart with an apple stem, is an ace of… spades. Because clubs look like grapes.”

It took half an hour to go through the list a second time. They went back and forth with uneven times- with one time being just thirty seconds- but Leon started having less and less trouble. Less and less as in nearly no problem at all.

“Okay, grapes of that many was here and here and here, but there were less grapes right here,” Gilbert said with blue puckered lips, each consonant pronounced five or six times from his shivering. He had long been using Leon’s terms and that seemed to be helping both of them more than he would admit. “So that’s an eight of clubs, and so’s that, and so’s that. Ace of hearts, ace of hearts, ace of hearts.”

The time stopped.

Leon ran off, “111, 121, 9 and 207.” Four eight of clubs. “33, 34, 208, 100.” Four nine of clubs. “55, 44, 182, 199.” Four ace of hearts. They were flying. They were done within another hour and a half, getting to that below freezing point for only a short time.

Katze realized why the Headmaster seemed disappointed.

He wanted them to die. Or at least need saving. He wanted to be begged for help, for mercy. And no one ever gave him that. Katze knew, from the bottom of his heart, he knew the Headmaster never fully got what he wanted. That’s what all these videos were for, this was why he was still watching them watch the videos, this was why he still had rules for them to follow. They fucked with his confidence.

No.

This was why Iason’s bratty attitude drove him wild.

Iason fucked up his confidence. He truly never expected to be caught… Not before catching Iason first. He had to have kept looking, like he did for the rest of them until they got locked up in their homes.

Jesus.

Iason was out there, looking, for months, yet the Headmaster never caught him. Four grown men went to the bar and got taken away; he and Raoul go to a hotel and bam, nearly get killed; but Iason… Escaped him. What… Did he stretch himself thin? That made the most sense.

***

Katze was so deep in thought, he was lost on the plot of the new video starring Sid, Norris and Maxi from afar. In a triangle. With one gun between them.

Voiceover: “Russian roulette! Easy enough game. Boring enough. But let’s spice things up with some emotion! Some rigging I would say. Some simple rigging for a simple game for some simple emotions. Just because it’s simple, though, doesn’t mean they are no less intense.

In the video: “You have two choices. You can shoot yourself somewhere on your body. Or you can shoot someone else somewhere. That’s if a bullet comes out at all. Do not speak. Just go in order. If you shoot anywhere else, or talk, the gun will be switched out, and you’ll have to start all over. There are eight rounds.”

The voice: “And here I am telling Sid and Norris that their turns involve a nice bullet, and that bullet can be shot in their arms. Then, afterwards, they must fire at Maxi or elsewhere, on my discretion. And, begin!”

It was hard to watch. Hard in a way that watching Zeke get nearly choked to death wasn’t. In a different way it hurt his heart, because he could just imagine why things were so tight between Norris and Maxi.

Maxi had the gun first and aimed at his arm, drew a blank. Then Norris got the gun and shot his arm, shouting.

Maxi shouted louder, “Nor! Oh, fuck.”

A guard came and switched out the gun.

Sid came next, and his arm shook so much, he missed, and the gun was switched out again.

“Still your turn, Sid.”

Sid stayed still long enough this time.

Maxi’s turn had him with a blank yet again.

Then Norris shot the floor. The gun switched out. Norris shot the floor. The gun switched out. Blank at the floor. Gun switched. Until Norris had the gun and shot Maxi.

The look of betrayal was heart-wrenching. Norris’ explanation, “You haven’t been shot yet,” killed Katze a little, and his soul squeezed through his eyes as Norris broke down crying, crumpling to the floor with a large pillow in his embrace.

Norris was never shot again. Neither was Sid. They shot Maxi seven times.

Between them: “Please.”

The gun was switched.

“Please, I think I’m losing too much blood. If you’re going to kill me, just kill me.”

Switch.

“Please.”

Switch.

“Please!”

Norris shot his other arm. Sid shot his other arm. Six blanks. Video ended, and Katze’s imagination filled in. Norris and Sid’s instructions probably included never telling the truth behind the roundtable that day, and Maxi had a hard time believing anything what few words Norris had said. It was a miracle they came back together.

***

The next video was wordless, and it involved Guy sitting in the usual birthday suit. He wasn’t tied down though, and the chair looked like thought of comfort went into it. The room was absolutely odd- a one room apartment, complete with a kitchen to the side and a bathroom behind him.

Voiceover was silent. Really? The maniac wasn’t satisfied with Guy? 

“Hello, Guy. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Ma’am.”

“How do you like this room I have set up for you?”

“It’s nice. Forgive me if I’m not too impressed. Past company has spoiled me, even though I think present company can afford just as much.”

“You’re receiving much more than any of my other guests.”

“At what cost?” Guy asked softly.

“It depends! Look out the window.”

Guy went to the window, and the camera switched to show a farm, one that stretched for further than the camera could see. The field of view did show guards in black at regular intervals, as well as black boxes that looked like gigantic amps.

“This is nice,” Guy admitted.

“What a surprise! Now it’s been some time since Riki has disappeared, Iason has disappeared. How do you feel?”

Guy walked away from the window, to the kitchen sink, turned on the tap. Clean, clear water poured from the spout in a steady stream. He started opening cabinets and nonchalantly began making coffee.

“Aren’t you getting comfortable? It’s almost as if you know you will be staying.”

“Would you like me to explain why?” Guy asked as he measured out the grains.

“I am… curious.”

The coffee bubbled. Guy rested his hip against the countertop. “I am free to stay in this mini-house, work the farm and read those books for some semblance of company, until either Riki dies, or he is released- rescued, by Iason. However!” Guy swirled his finger in the air with feigned flair. “I can save myself from this lonely life if I trade spots with Kyrie, and by trading spots is that I have to use my free time in trying to capture him somehow. He’s as slippery as Iason. To be honest, I’m surprised you haven’t caught either of them.

“Anyway, thank you for letting me know that they are both alright. Riki and Iason.”

The video stayed quiet for so long, Guy had finished making his breakfast. The camera had to change to show him at a small table, enough for one plate, and mug. This angle also showed the wall of books to which Guy had access. He grabbed a random book and began reading.

The shocked maniac finally spoke, “Did you talk to one of my people?”

“And what?” Guy asked. “I just walked myself into a trap? Well, I did do that. You’re right. You might as well have had a big ol’ neon sign screaming, ‘I’m about to drug you with this cup of tea!’ And I was bored and curious if I would get any insight on how Riki was doing, if he was alive. Luckily, I got all my questions answered. The answer is no, by the way.”

“I didn’t take you as someone who cared about Kyrie.”

“I think you know I am one of the many people who don’t care about Kyrie. Especially not enough to put down my own discomfort to protect him. Thing is, this is all very nice. Too nice for Kyrie. I’d rather he run around like a chicken with his head cut off.”

“I don’t…”

The voice faltered.

“How did you know… Everything?”

Guy made the woman wait before answering, “You’re like Riki. You have a way of setting up your scenes-”

“Scenes?”

“I don’t know. You’re probably a psychopath who believes you either deserve these experiences or whatever, so you don’t call these scenes like the layman does. Probably something like transformations- no, no, no, you have this thing about making people do what’s hard for them to do, something that plays on their weaknesses or their concerns. Like some therapist. Sessions, maybe.

“Anyway. You have this way of setting up your ‘sessions’ to transform or distort your patient’s usual way of thinking. You didn’t think I would say no right away, or answer at all. But, what will happen to ‘help’ me decide is you’re going to play on those speakers right there, and there, and there, is probably Riki fighting somebody.”

Katze had always known Guy to be exceedingly perceptive, but in Riki’s shadow, it was hard to see the quiet, pretty boy with the calm brown eyes as anything but a sweet sidekick to Riki’s thrilling aura. Even for someone who’s seen them for so long, Katze still couldn’t help being awed by Guy.

“I have a new offer,” said the woman, stiff, curt, kind of angry, but trying not to let it show.

Guy nodded, making sure not to ever interrupt.

“I just made it up. Do you have any idea what it might be?”

“Yes. You’re going to offer Gideon and Luke’s, Daryl’s, Mimea’s future safety, if I tell you, honestly, if I talked to any of your people. Or if I talked to Kyrie who might have spoken to any of your people.”

“Why did… Why did you say Gideon and Luke together?”

“Because you’re going to do something with them together. That’s just an educated guess, since Riki and Iason is a thing for you, and you had Norris and Maxi separated so well, and now with me, you’re egging me onto the pseudo-ethical, with Riki.”

These silences hurt.

“And?” the woman prompted.

“I didn’t talk to anyone. You’ve just had a lot of run-ins with people I know and I put things together.”

“When watching a crime show you might put things together, but this is something else entirely! I’ll torture them, Guy.”

“Would you like me to lie to you about something so that you’ll be able to hear how it sounds if I am lying?”

“Yes. What is Riki’s favorite part of you?”

“My eyes.”

“Then it’s your hair.”

“Exactly. See. You know.”

“You seem to have expected that I would know.”

“There isn’t much of me that’s impressive.”

“You’re right. There isn’t much of you that is impressive. And… There has been a series of… annoyances…”

“Oh?” Guy shrugged. “Guess you got close to Iason again, but it didn’t go so well.”

“I would like your hair.”

Guy paused. “Don’t… Touch my hair.”

“Finally. A bit of a crack. But I’ll be taking your hair.”

The camera switched to the guards, as they marched in step to the house.

“NOOOOO! NO! NO! NOOOOOO! NO! NO! NO!”

_PTAH!_

A feminine groan and a sudden thump rattled the intercom system.

The video stopped.

“Wait, what! What the fuck happened?” Norris yelled. “No offense, Guy, but I was low-key interested.”

“I am high-key interested,” Luke added. “Because he was right about me and Gideon.”

“He… was…” Gideon nodded slowly.

Guy finished off his beer, saying, “Kyrie. Does he feel comfortable in me telling everyone what happened, even though he went through such lengths to hide it?”

“Actually, he…” Kyrie turned to Iason, then, slowly, to Riki. “He wants Riki to bring Iason into the camera view. He wants it done now. He wants it done quickly.”

“Perhaps he should get someone else to do it then?” Iason questioned, not moving.

Kyrie muttered, “We’re almost done!”

“I got it.” Riki stood.

“It?” Iason curled up.

Did he not know? He must not…

Iason learned as Riki put one arm underneath his legs and supported the small of his back, picking him up with the ease of a man who picked up grown men for a living, or of a man with spectacular strength.

Iason stayed stiff and curled on Riki’s lap, even when Riki sat down, but before Kirie or lady or maniac could tell him, he rested his head on his hand to face the television, an elbow in Riki’s shoulder, purposeful and childish. He had his eyebrows raised and a curl at the corners of his mouth. This was not the time or place but Iason will make it both once he had enough of his pride in the pot, a pride bigger than his brass balls.

With that done, Kyrie said, “Guy cut his own hair with a knife from one of the drawers, and then he was beaten. Then he was trapped at the farm until… Riki was free. Day of.”

As everyone nodded, Kyrie started Daryl’s video.

***

“Oh, god.”

“Jesus.”

Raoul turned into Katze’s arms, and he whispered, “I got you.”

“Fuuuuck me.”

“Goddamn.”

“Scary. Scary. Scary. Scary.”

The woman explained, “An easy task. Just walk from one end of the room, to the other,” and the woman in the video pretty much said the same.

Daryl, naked, stood at one end of what seemed to be the familiar cement room with the fluorescent lighting, except that the room was exceptionally long, and the door was situated at one end rather than in the middle of one wall to the side. The camera switched angles, had to be at least twenty.

“Why are there so many cameras?” Kirie complained.

“Because Guy pissed him off,” Riki said from underneath Iason’s limbs.

“Then put him- oh, fucking, A, he’s walking.”

Daryl’s room was three bodies deep of bodies, in more pieces than Katze could count, dared to count. Not an inch was free, and Daryl’s feet slipped and lost its footing with each and every step. His third step had him puking, but he didn’t fall. He walked better than was expected, one foot after another, and the camera was always the perfect angle. A twenty-first camera zoomed in on his tearstained face, focused on his hands as he attempted to bring them together, but they had to be jutted out for balance.

Raoul whispered to him, “You can feel it. How this one is… He must masturbate to these videos. And this is a slow… Slow one. Others are longer, others are shorter. He’s making porn and, this… This is soft for him.”

Riki leaned over. “Yea. A new project.”

“I don’t think he’s done after all this.”

“Shhh…. Let’s not put that out into the atmosphere just yet. Or ever.”

Katze agreed wholeheartedly.

Daryl fell over. He was no more than two steps from the door, but he fainted. The video sped forward until Daryl woke up screaming, and dry-heaving, and scrambling for the door, where the video stopped.

***

The next video was an audio recording: “Gideon Lagat. I can see where you are so don’t move. You’re in a perfect position to be shot through the head. Do you see the red light?”

Gideon’s voice took a deep breath. “Yes. I see it.”

“You really shouldn’t have taken a walk in a park.”

“You can only be in one of these bushes or trees! How could you possibly have gotten this number? My parents just bought it.”

“At a store. You know I can get into a store.”

“Yea. Hubert hasn’t slept in weeks.”

“Be quiet. Soon. Luke will be calling you, for I will give him your number, and you will meet him at that bench underneath those trees over there. Do not do something stupid like get someone to investigate. When the two of you get together, he will tell you his story, and then he will ask for your help, your company. Stand up, and reject him. If you don’t, I’ll kill him, and I’ll kill Guy.”

“Not finished with Riki, huh.”

“Good day.”

Luke’s began in the same video, cutting sharply to Gideon and him on a bench in a park.

“He just tied me down to a table,” Luke was saying between thin lips; he was much smaller than present him, and present him was already thin. “He would tell me what drug it was, pump me full of it. It was fucking three hots and a cot otherwise. Had a ten-minute walk every hour, and all fucking day he talked about you and what you were doing. Then, at the end of the day, he would put me in front of the door and say if I left, I could be free, but you’ll replace me. And I couldn’t do that. Day, after day, after day, after day. I don’t know how long I was in there, but at the end of each day I thought about you, Gideon, and turned around.

“I’m really sorry about breaking up with you, and I’m not asking you to take me back. Just… Can I stay with you, like Katze and Raoul are-”

Gideon stood up. “No.”

“Please, Gideon, I… It’s so hard to get out of it. I’m already addicted.”

“I can’t help you.” Gideon started walking away.

“I can hear you kind of crying!” Luke yelled at his retreating back. “To be honest, I only wanted… I wanted to hear your voice again! To make it all seem worth it! I know she’s got you! I’ll get clean! I’ll get clean for you!”

***

The screen faded to black and gave way to the woman’s disturbingly familiar voice: “What an adventure! An absolute delight! Sure there were some bumps, but all in all, a wonderful time. Oh, let me have the credits roll.”

Credits were Riki in a jail cell beating the shit out of people, played in the background of the woman’s exuberant words.

“Kyrie and Iason were unfortunately out of my reach. Sure, I was able to get Kyrie to host this elaborate get-together, but getting close to him was… You would think someone so desperate for money and so without would be short of resources, at least shorter than my list. But using all his money to stay on campus, to set up cameras and the like, to keep up such a secret relationship with multiple parents and secret secrets, oh, he knows how to move in this world to his advantage. He and… Iason had complete control of their environments. Chaotic, constantly changing environments, and yet.

“Oh, this is my favorite fight.”

Katze watched the close fight unfold, the older man’s compliments, Riki’s callout to Iason.

“Well, there it all is. If you wish, you can watch the rest of Riki exceeding my expectations again and again and again. And then… Annoying me. Why would he not just… give up… It’s been days… It’s been weeks… It’s been months!”

The woman laughed emptily; it cut short, as if edited electronically.

“It doesn’t matter. Iason got lucky and managed to get Riki back and now we have…. Well. All of you have seen what we have. Make sure nobody else sees it, or knows, or anything of that nature. You can guess what might happen- for one of you will make a mistake eventually, and I will capitalize on that mistake. Thank you. Good night.”

Kyrie turned it off at once, yanked out the external drive, threw it to the floor. He then picked it up, muttering, “Just in case.”

Katze had never felt a silence that made him feel so at ease. It was over. It was finally over. Now he could… What could he do now? Go back to school? That seemed stupid in the wake of what happened, and then he had to come to terms that what he and Raoul went through paled in comparison to what most of the others went through.

Kyrie fell to his knees, shouting, “No! Fuck! Really! No, no, no-” He got back up. “No, please. I’m fine, I’m okay. Riki!”

Everyone was in a state of standing now, or hugging, or crying, or resting in the arms of someone, hugging someone else.

Riki turned to Kirie.

“Wassup?”

“He wants you to… Let Iason know.”

Iason poked his head down between them. “Let me know what?”

“It’s… I’mma tell him, because I want to see Mimea safe, and I want to go home. Riki’s like super fucking strong. Way stronger than you. Faster… And… Fuck… He wants you- He wants Riki to show you.”

“What, like, arm wrestle?”

“Yep! C’mon!” Kirie went back to the kitchen and slammed his hands on the island, impatient and tired. “Arm wrestle!”

“He’s like a three-year-old who has to be put to bed,” Guy said out loud.

“Don’t antagonize him! I mean, fuck! Don’t y’all wanna get out of this… This! This situation? I mean, fuck!”

Riki put his elbow on the island, curling a finger for Iason to do the same, which he did of course. Kirie put his hands on their hold, counted to three, and then stepped out of the way as Riki immediately smacked Iason’s hand down.

Iason stared at his hand in shock.

“Weren’t ready?” Riki taunted.

“Let’s try again!”

This time, Riki let Iason entertain the thought of pushing his hand down by keeping still. Iason grunted with effort, pushing at the countertop with his other hand, but he couldn’t move Riki’s hand an inch, and Riki pushed him the opposite direction bit by bit.

Then Iason grunted and started using his other hand.

He was still losing. Still, Riki straightened up but:

“He says don’t stop, Riki.” Kirie gasped and corrected, “She said don’t stop.”

“He’s going to hurt himself if I try to put both his arms down like this.”

“Don’t let up. Win.”

Iason growled tightly, “Like hell I’mma let him win!”

“Because you don’t want to lose in front of this… This random lady?!”

“Fuck you and that maniac!”

“Don’t call her crazy! It’s… It’s rude. And you should have won by now, Riki, she said. Please, Riki, just-”

Riki closed his eyes. “Goddamnit, Iason! Just lose!” He was holding back.

“No! I’m not just going to just… lose! That’s what he expects, doesn’t he? He’s been underestimating me and fucking with me and my friends and my _love_ and now he wants some aftercare? Fuck him!”

“Iason, I’m begging you. Just behave!”

“Behave! Did you just fuckin’ say ‘behave’? Is that what you were making me do in there when you picked me up like a sack of potatoes?”

“More like a bunch of grapes!”

“And when you hit me! Spanked me like a child!”

“Because you are being childish, because you don’t like when you don’t have control over a situation you don’t want!” Riki panted with effort. “I know this is scary-”

“I’m not scared!” Iason screamed.

“And I know you feel guilty!”

“I don’t!”

“But I got you! You know that right? I got you, Iason! Agh!”

Iason was bracing his feet at the base of the island, his face hidden in his arms.

“Alright! Y’all! Move out of the way!” Riki yelled at those across from Iason, and as soon as the coast was clear, he flipped Iason over, which was the only way Katze saw this arm-wrestling ending. He knew the maniac did as well, even if Guy was true in that the maniac wasn’t yet ready to get rid of them as toys tonight, much less forever, and he wanted a more satisfactory end.

Iason whimpered as Hubert and Raoul helped him back up.

Riki came over and ripped Iason’s shirt to reveal an awkward set of shoulders.

“You dislocated them both.” Raoul shook his head. “Your strength is incredible. Why would you hide it?”

Riki being in the middle of popping shoulders back into place, Guy answered for him, “So that people wouldn’t put him in a cage to see how strong he was, for starters.”

“Ah. So this is someone who knows about your strength.”

“That would have to be someone who’s known him for a very long time.”

Kyrie took their attention as he pulled a wire from his shirt and the mic from his ear, stepping on both to crush them to the tiniest bits, more than was called for, and then dashed off screaming, “Son of a bitch! She’s been here the whole time!” His stomps could be heard on the stairs at uneven intervals. “She’s tied up on your bed, Iason!”

“Of course she is…” Iason sniffed. “Of course she is!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's that! The real sequel to Savor- Melt- will pretty much pick up where this left off, and it will be all about boning various people, and something else. A certain elephant in the room. Hope to see you there! I hope this wasn't too depressing- it was pretty depressing to write at times and I just wanted to put everyone in a room and have an orgy but that's not what happened unfortunately. See you at Melt!


End file.
